[WIP] SimpleSEF - An alternative SEF URL modification

[SlammedDime]

Some features of the mod:

• Works with Apache (mod_rewrite required) or IIS7 (if your host has the Microsoft Url Rewriter Module installed and allows web.config files in your directory)
  
• .htaccess file is only 4 small lines (web.config file is a bit larger, due to it's XML nature)
  
• Makes ZERO code changes to SMF's core files (except to add a settings page in the admin panel)
  
• Adds no more than 3 database queries to each page load, reduced to 2 if caching is enabled on your site
  
• Choose the suffix for topics (.htm, .html, etc)
  
• 'Simple' mode, allows you to not have topic/board/user names in URLs, but instead just the word topic, board or user
  
• Removes user specified words and characters from board and topic and usernames (thinks like ! $ &, etc, and short words, like 'the', 'at', 'and', etc.  These are customizable in the admin panel.
  
• Does NOT change action=admin links, to allow for still accessing the admin panel in case something goes awry and use some admin features
  
• 'Smart' mode - when you add mods with new actions/subactions to your board, SimpleSEF readily recognizes the new ones and accounts for them without any interaction from you
  
• Specify the 'space' character in the URL (ie: general_discussion, general-discussion, general.discussion, etc)
  
• Topic ID and User ID's are included in URLs to prevent database queries on incoming requests
  
• Works out of the box with XML requests
  
• Works with my Sitemap Mod (Recommended to be used together)
  
  * Currently looking for Beta Testers * - While this is pretty solid (copied a lot of code from my work on the OpenSEF/Joomla/SMF bridge SEF component), I would still like a few people to test it out to see how well it works.  I'm looking for serious people that will actually be able to test this out, not fly by night forums looking for something new.  Please do NOT PM me, post here.
  
  ETA: Demo link: http://www.airridetalk.com/forum

[Dragooon]

Hm, I'd like to give it a shot. It looks extremely interesting and I may be able to have a use for it, although for now I'll test it on my dev. server. Although TBH I may not be a solid Beta tester but I'll try to occasionally test its feature and provide feedback.

[SlammedDime]

No worries Dragooon, you at least have a solid track record here at SMF and have some good mods.  I have some final touches to still put on this mod, so it should be available soon.

[bloc]

Looks very promising.

[Arantor]

Looks VERY interesting. I'm very curious to know how you've done this one

[Özgür]

Looks nice. Are you planning  make converter for prettyurls or seo4smf ?

[Antes]

very nice looking really what i'm looking , after my forum converted to SMF i want to be ur beta Tester if you want

[digit]

I'd be happy to beta test - if you have access to who's who in Big Boards, you will know about my board.  Feel free to pm me or post here.

Thanks.

[SlammedDime]

Looks nice. Are you planning  make converter for prettyurls or seo4smf ?

AFAIK, Pretty Urls is pretty stable, so I don't see a need to make a converter for it, although if enough people ask, I can certainly look into it.  As for SEO4SMF, that mod is quite outdated last I checked, so I don't think many people will be using it.

[Sorck]

I'm quite interested in this
IIRC prettyURLS is also out of date as it's last compatible version stated is 2 RC1-1 but I believe it works on RC1-2 as well, unfortunatley it isn't yet working for RC2

If you need any extra Beta Testers I'd be happy to try this out.

[Yağız...]

unfortunatley it isn't yet working for RC2

It's already updated

BTW, nice one SlammedDime. Maybe I can help you with beta testing, but my English is not very good, that can cause some problems

[Antes]

is there any ETA for 0.1 version ?

[SlammedDime]

Getting close, working on the admin panel settings page right now.

[Informatics]

Please, let me know if the code is ready for testing

[Özgür]

I like that url system but are we really need "msgXXXX" in url? Or is that your choice ? =)

[Arantor]

You do need the msg part if you want to link to individual posts properly.

[JBlaze]

I actually tested this quite thoroughly this morning and decided it was was safe enough to put up on my live site.

So far, only things I've noticed is:
- Sometimes requires clearing the smf cache for some links to work
- Ajax Chat fails miserably, but that's expected
- Pageload times increase a bit, but expected.
- Works seamlessly with custom actions/mods

Live site: http://gamingbrotherhood.com

[1Chope]

waiting for this.Cool!!!

[SlammedDime]

I actually tested this quite thoroughly this morning and decided it was was safe enough to put up on my live site.

So far, only things I've noticed is:
- Sometimes requires clearing the smf cache for some links to work
- Ajax Chat fails miserably, but that's expected
- Pageload times increase a bit, but expected.
- Works seamlessly with custom actions/mods

Live site: http://gamingbrotherhood.com

1) Board names are cached, so if you add boards, you'd need to clear the cache, or wait the 1 hour until the cache refreshes... I should probably add that note in.
2) How so?
3) Yea, but as you can see by the times in the footer, it's not much at all... on my test site, the page load increase was about .01 seconds.
4) As it should

I've decided to bypass testing and submit this straight to the mod site... keep an eye for it soon.

[JBlaze]

The same thing happens with AjaxChat with PrettyURLs as it does here. It creates a 500 error. Although, with prettyurls, the chat just redirects to the boardindex.

Might be some way to create an exception for ajaxchat?