https://htyp.org/mw/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=75.31.105.122HTYP - User contributions [en]2026-06-23T22:48:41ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.45.3https://htyp.org/mw/index.php?title=MediaWiki/archive/customizing/URLs&diff=7452MediaWiki/archive/customizing/URLs2007-06-23T08:36:01Z<p>75.31.105.122: /* Comments */</p>
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<div>==Navigation==<br />
{{web software|MediaWiki}}: [[MediaWiki customization|customization]]: [[shortening MediaWiki URLs]]{{sidebar|__TOC__}}<br />
==Overview==<br />
The most reliable method seems to be the mod_rewrite, which requires access to either httpd.conf or requires particular handling options for .htaccess to be switched on (fortunately, they usually seem to be). Failing that, another method is:<br />
* [[using error handlers to tidy MediaWiki URLs]]<br />
<br />
Some additional methods are documented [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Eliminating_index.php_from_the_url here].<br />
==Using mod_rewrite==<br />
This is probably documented elsewhere, but this is what actually worked on a shared server without root access or a shell.<br />
<br />
This assumes MediaWiki is installed in the root of the www pages, e.g. <nowiki>http://thedomain.com/Main_Page</nowiki> is the wiki's main page.<br />
<br />
First, the .htaccess file needs to include:<br />
{{quoteon}}<br />
:&lt;IfModule [[mod_rewrite]].c&gt;<br />
::RewriteEngine on<br />
::<br />
::RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f<br />
::RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d<br />
::RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L,QSA]<br />
:&lt;/IfModule&gt;<br />
{{quoteoff}}<br />
<br />
Second, modify LocalSettings.php:<br />
:$wgArticlePath = "/$1";<br />
<br />
Then do ?action=purge on any page to test it. Internal links on existing pages will convert to the new URLs any time they are saved or purged.<br />
<br />
The above seems to work for everything (including editing) without breaking old-style URLs, and may offer clues as to how to fix the minor problems which make the 404 method (below) unusable.<br />
<br />
This method is also documented here, with some minor changes: http://wiki.welldesignedurls.org/Clean_Urls_for_MediaWiki<br />
<br />
Wish list:<br />
* proper handling of page named [[.htaccess]] (click on that for a demonstration of the problem)<br />
* ability to have the wiki installed in a subdirectory while still making it appear to be in the domain's root folder<br />
==Comments==<br />
Please feel free to post comments here or on the Talk page if you try any of these procedures.<br />
<br />
-------------------------<br />
6/23/2007: I used your .htaccess and then set ''$wgArticlePath = "$wgScriptPath/$1";''. This way the forwarding works regardless of what directory the wiki is located in. In my case it was ''/wiki''. --Jordan Mendler [[mailto:jmendler@ucla.edu jmendler@ucla.edu]]<br />
-------------------------</div>75.31.105.122