[pmwiki-users] I need help with clean URLs

[info at theburroughsproject.com]

Patrick, thank you very much for clearing all that up. Unfortunately,
this still isn't working for me. This is what I've done:

I created an "index.php" file, that contains the single line:
<?php include_once('pmwiki.php');

This works fine for making "www.example.com" work. 

Then I created an .htaccess file with exactly this in it:

# Use mod_rewrite to enable "Clean URLs" for a PmWiki installation.
RewriteEngine On
# The rewrite base will be the document root.
RewriteBase /
# Send requests without parameters to pmwiki.php.
RewriteRule ^$           pmwiki.php  [L]
# Send requests for index.php to pmwiki.php.
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ pmwiki.php  [L]
# Send requests to pmwiki.php, appending the query string part.
RewriteRule ^([^/a-z].*) pmwiki.php?n=$1  [QSA,L]

and placed it in my main web folder (the same one that contains
"pmwiki.php").

At this point URLs like "www.example.com/SomeGroup/SomePage" do not
work, I just get a 404, but the old URLs, with the
"?n=SomeGroup.SomePage" still work fine.

I went ahead and tried the next step, to see what would happen, adding:

<?php if (!defined('PmWiki')) exit();
$EnablePathInfo = 1;
$ScriptUrl = 'http://www.example.com';
## remainder of configuration goes here

to my config file, and now the links point to clean URLs, but I still
get the 404 when I click them (the old URLs still work, though).

Should I be putting something in place of "## remainder of configuration
goes here"?

Or is it possible that I need to create a php.ini file with something in
it? I know my hosting service will allow this, and I seem to remember
that coming up in another post in the archive...

Thanks,
Phil


----


On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 11:57:29PM -0700, info at theburroughsproject.com
wrote:
> Hello. I'm having a very difficult time getting clean URLs. I have my
> pmwiki.php file and all of the folders in my main directory. 
> 
> Right now my URLs look like this:
> www.example.com/pmwiki.php?n=SomeGroup.SomePage
> 
> I want my URLs to look like this:
> www.example.com/SomeGroup/SomePage
> 
> And I'd like, if possible, for the Main.HomePage URL to just be:
> www.example.com/

This looks like "Example Three" from the Cookbook.CleanUrls
page, so you'll want to follow it.

First, let's get www.example.com/ to work for your Main.HomePage.
Create a file called 'index.php' in the same directory as pmwiki.php,
in that file place the line:

   <?php include_once('pmwiki.php');

After doing this, then the url http://www.example.com/ should
automatically display the Main.HomePage.

Okay, now for the rest of the clean urls.  Create a file called
'.htaccess' in the same directory as pmwiki.php, and in that
file include the following lines:

   # Use mod_rewrite to enable "Clean URLs" for a PmWiki installation.
   RewriteEngine On
   # The rewrite base will be the document root.
   RewriteBase /
   # Send requests without parameters to pmwiki.php.
   RewriteRule ^$           pmwiki.php  [L]
   # Send requests for index.php to pmwiki.php.
   RewriteRule ^index\.php$ pmwiki.php  [L]
   # Send requests to pmwiki.php, appending the query string part.
   RewriteRule ^([^/a-z].*) pmwiki.php?n=$1  [QSA,L]

After making this change, urls that look like
www.example.com/SomeGroup/SomePage should work.

Lastly, we need to configure PmWiki to use the new "clean" urls
instead of its default, thus in local/config.php, place the lines

   <?php if (!defined('PmWiki')) exit();
   $EnablePathInfo = 1;
   $ScriptUrl = 'http://www.example.com';
   ## remainder of configuration goes here

This will tell PmWiki to generate its links using the
www.example.com/SomeGroup/SomePage format instead of
www.example.com/pmwiki.php?n=SomeGroup.SomePage .

> For example, whenever it mentions "~someuser", is that the same as
> saying "somefolder"? Or is there a significance with the "~" and the
> term "user"? What's a "user" in this context?

Aha, you've found a hole of sorts in the CleanUrls description.
CleanUrls was written from the perspective of someone having
installed PmWiki into a per-user directory on a server, where
urls all tend to begin with the user's name.  But your situation
is running PmWiki from the document root directory, or from
a place that isn't associated with the server's user accounts.
In fact, I'd tend to think that your situation is the more common
one.

So, perhaps what we need to do is to eliminate the "~someuser"
references and just use "path/to/pmwiki" instead, so that
the administrator understands to simply replace that component
of the path (without any reference to "~someuser").

Any comments from the group?

> And where it says:
> 
> >   Here's the matching local/config.php file: 
> >
> >   <?php if (!defined('PmWiki')) exit();
> >   ## Use "Clean URLs".
> >   $EnablePathInfo = 1;
> >   $ScriptUrl = "http://server.example.com/~someuser/pmwiki";
> >   ## more configuration settings...
> 
> what does the "server" in "server.example.com/~someuser/pmwiki";"
> supposed to be? Am I supposed to change that to something? 

That's a typo in the recipe, it should match all of the other
server references --- i.e., it should also be "www.example.com".

> If someone could dumb this down for me, just give me a more "plain
> language" step-by-step that's not way over my head, I'd really
> appreciate it a lot. I've been trying different things for quite some
> time, and I just can't make it work. I don't know much about servers or
> rewriting.

I hope the above is helpful -- if not, please keep asking.
Your questions have already pointed out some important gaps
in the current documentation, so this is a huge help to us all.

Thanks!

Pm