Syncato URLs

I just put a new build of Syncato in production on the site. This build adds a number of new features that I'll cover in future posts. One of the more visible is an enhancement of the URL scheme. The URL for a post can now include the title to make it more friendly.

There are two forms of title inclusion.

1. Title + id (example: http://www.xmldatabases.org/WK/blog/728_Java_Update_1.4.1_for_Panther.item) This includes the ID of the post to eliminate the need for titles to be unique in the system. This is the preferred format for URLs included in web pages.
2. Title only (example: http://www.xmldatabases.org/WK/blog/Java_Update_1.4.1_for_Panther.item) This doesn't include the ID, but it has two limitations: all titles must be unique and changing the title changes the URL. This primarily exists to help you type in a URL for a post where you may know the title but not its ID. This should see minimal use.

In both schemes the stylesheet that is applied shows up as an extension. In Syncato individual weblog posts are converted to XML by item.xsl so the extension becomes .item. If you wanted it to be the more common .html there a number of ways to do that. The preferred is to create a user stylesheet named html.xsl that imports the default system item.xsl. Some others are to use symbolic links, and of course to just rename item.xsl.

These new URLs also work for pages that are not weblog posts. For instance the Syncato FAQ currently found at http://www.syncato.org/WK/blog/526?t=page can now also be accessed with the more friendly http://www.syncato.org/WK/blog/Syncato_FAQ.page

Posted by Kimbro Staken