The index aliases are prone to causing problems (like killing the forum callback) and don't seem to work very well on their own. This issue is to get feedback about the idea of removing the "index aliases" functionality from Pathauto.

If the change happens it would happen in CVS-HEAD as part of the run-up to 5.0. It would also include big warnings on the project page and README about the change.

Comments

greggles’s picture

greggles
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Primary language English
Location Denver, Colorado, USA
commented

If you use this feature and want it to stay supported, please comment with examples of HOW you use it and WHY it makes your site better. I believe lots of people are using it "just because" without any specific benefit in mind. In order to argue for it staying in we should know the marginal benefit.

FiReaNGeL’s picture

FiReaNGeL commented

I'd vote for it to stay in. Its useful for an 'archive' way to access things (story/12/28/ to see everything published that day, story/12 to see a monthly archive, etc) with the same path pattern that is used for actual stories.

If there's another easy way to do this (with views?), then I guess it could die, as I agree - it's broken and slow right now.

NickHBO’s picture

NickHBO commented

I would like to see it stay. I use it so can fall back and see all of the content in that "directory" - similar to the previous post about archiving. It's much nicer to have a list of something than a 404 page, even if the list only has one item.

I think what would be a good addition, would be a "Delete All Index Aliases" option. If you did run into a situation where the Index Aliases were interfering with your site, it would be much easier to press a button and get rid of them than go and manually delete them all.

greggles’s picture

greggles
he/him
Primary language English
Location Denver, Colorado, USA
commented

@NickHBO - The delete item is tricky, but there is other discussion/work on it. Can you point me to a site where it is working for you? Part of the problem I have with the index aliases is that as far as I know, they don't work. You can send it to me in private (click on my user and then contact) if you like.

greggles’s picture

greggles
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Primary language English
Location Denver, Colorado, USA
commented

Here's an example of achieving the same functionality with views module:

This is one view - at the URL of /archive/

http://www.angrydonuts.com/archive

It uses "summary mode" when no argument is present. So, it presents links to the available sub-categories such as http://www.angrydonuts.com/archive/200602

This is very similar to your example, fireangel.

It requires another module, and some extra manual configuration, but has the major benefit of being within a module that was designed to do that kind of thing...

If we remove the feature I would provide a more complete guide to using views to replace index aliases, but this is basically the concept.

FiReaNGeL’s picture

FiReaNGeL commented

#2 submitted by FiReaNG3L on October 24, 2006 - 23:48
If there's another easy way to do this (with views?)

If there anything views can't do? :-) I just saw this in my RSS feeds... this solution works for date-based archives perfectly (ie. a /year/month/day path).

However, I am unfamiliar with views : do you think it would also be possible to create this kind of archive if I had /journal/year/month/day (a 'view' of journal names, each leading to a yearly archive, each leading to a monthly archive?)

If so, the index feature of path auto can go - views is well maintened and performs better.

greggles’s picture

greggles
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Primary language English
Location Denver, Colorado, USA
commented

I'm not sure it will be _easy_ but it will be easier than the partially-working pathauto system.

I'll leave it to you to figure out if it's easy.

About the multi level structure - 2006/ and then 2006/02 and then 2006/02/23 I'm not sure if that is possible or not. But, you could do 2006 200602 and 20060223 and probably have the argument "do the right thing" because arguments can go through php modifying code before being used.

FiReaNGeL’s picture

FiReaNGeL commented

I'm reading views documentation and it seems it supports multiple arguments, so I could do what I want. If no one else has opposition, I can see the index feature of pathauto being removed in a near future :) Like you said, it's not really working anyway in its current state.

m3avrck’s picture

m3avrck commented

I support getting rid of the index issue.

On some *very* large sites I've built, including MTV UK I always make sure to *never* turn on those index aliases and to make sure no one turns them on.

They cause all sorts of problems and can create a lot of unecessary entries in the path table.

Views module, like you said, could and should provide those defaults as needed.

greggles’s picture

greggles
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Primary language English
Location Denver, Colorado, USA
commented
Status: Active » Closed (duplicate)

Turns out that this is basically part and parcel of the listing page: http://drupal.org/node/91105

So, I'm making this issue a duplicate.

greggles’s picture

greggles
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Primary language English
Location Denver, Colorado, USA
commented

also, they're really really slow and "bring DEATH AND DESCRUCTION" according to http://drupal.org/node/124216

pizzaman-1’s picture

pizzaman-1 commented

Any chance you could add a warning to Pathauto's help content alerting the user that index aliases could be harmful and are deprecated? When I first set up my drupal site I thought "eh, neat feature" and enabled index aliases on a lark, not understanding the implications.

Now, of course, I have thousands of them. I realize it was my own fault, but I'm just saying a warning might help new users.

greggles’s picture

greggles
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Primary language English
Location Denver, Colorado, USA
commented

That's a good point. It is currently on the project home page and I just committed a warning about it in the README.txt

I don't want to change any of the strings in the UI for Pathauto5.x-1 because then the translations have to be updated...

Thanks for the recommendation.