site layout question...

charles
Joined: 16 Oct 2008

site layout question...

Posted:02 Nov 2008 (22:47 UTC)
Greetings,
I am attempting to convert an existing web site to BW.
My question is: How can I best replicate an existing
site layout in BW?
This is important, as all the links are already firmly
embedded in all the search engines databases, and
the site ranks high in all of them. While I know I
could use mod_rewrite to re-direct the queries to
a new location/link. I would really rather not.
So again, is it possible to at least mimmick the
directory structure of an existing web site when
attempting to convert one to BW?

Thank you for all your time and consideration.

--Chuck
Kozuch
Profile Picture
Joined: 06 Mar 2006

Re: site layout question...

Posted:02 Nov 2008 (23:27 UTC)
Changing CMS is always a pain in the ass for SEO in my opinion. Regarding bitweaver, the package directories names are more or less of your choice (excluding few required packages like kernel, users and some more, cant recall exactly now). However, regarding post- or content-specific URLs, I am affraid you gotta do some magic of your own like the mod_redirect you mention. I cant imagine creating redirect rules for a big site manually though, hopefully can you use some automated generator.
charles
Joined: 16 Oct 2008

Re: site layout question...

Posted:03 Nov 2008 (00:38 UTC)
Hello Kozuch, and thank you for your reply.

SEO isn't really an issue for me, as BW (as well as Apache) already provides a mechanism for accomplishing
Searh engine "friendly" URL/I's. But I was hoping to
discover which (if any) package(s) might be best
to use to provide a layout that at least appears to
have the same (directory/structure)layout that my
original site has. That is;

I have a /faq/ directory that has several sub folders
whose (folder) names are indicative of the faq subject,
eg; /faq/sed/.

Isn't it possible to accomplish this same strategy in
BW?

For instance; if I wanted to learn about SED at my site, I would simply type:

www.domain.tld/faq/sed

Will BW accomplish this same strategy with any of the
existing packages - even though there isn't
necessarily a directory structure /faq/sed/ in BW?

Thank you again for taking the time to respond.

--Chuck
Kozuch
Profile Picture
Joined: 06 Mar 2006

Re: site layout question...

Posted:03 Nov 2008 (11:18 UTC)
I meant SEO in the terms of loosing site rating through changing URLs of each particular page. I am not sure you can easily modify the URLs of pages inside the package directories.
charles
Joined: 16 Oct 2008

Re: site layout question...

Posted:03 Nov 2008 (14:00 UTC)
Hello Kozuch, and thank you for your reply.

Well, as SEO/SEF goes, I've been simply using mod_rewrite
to get rid of the ?=<something> portion of the links.
so now they end up /users/login.php or something similar.
So, using mod_rewrite in this way, I thought I might be
able to use the articles package, then simulate the
current directory structure on my original site by using
topics. That way I could create a topic name for every
directory in my original site, and create the contents
of the directories by article title - eg;

topic --> FAQ
title --> SED

becomes /FAQ/sed

So, I installed the articles package, and created a topic,
then added the content to it. I saved it, and it looked
right. Then I went to the root of the site and picked
the topic from the menu, and I was prompted to download
the index.php. (:cry:) Ummm, is there something broken in the
articles package that wasn't mentioned. Are you (or anyone else) familiar with this problem in the articles
package?

My servers all know what PHP is. The mime-type is
correctly mapped, and has been for nearly 2 decades.
So we can rule that out.

Thank you, or anyone else that can provide some insight to this problem.

Thank you again for your reply.

--Chuck</something>
xing
Joined: 07 Mar 2004

Re: site layout question...

Posted:06 Nov 2008 (08:12 UTC)
i don't think there is anything similar to what you're trying to do avaialble in bitweaver yet. in theory it shouldn't be all that difficult to write your own package that would map:
http://your.site/path/to/file
to
http://bitweaver.site/index.php?content_id=123 (or any other bitweaver url)

the tedious part would be mapping old URLs to the new ones. suppose some of that could be automated but still requires some work.

it might also help to know, that you can rename any dir in bitweaver to whatever name you want with some few exeptions including:

<?php
install
libertyuserskernellanguagesstoragethemes.
?>


so, you can rename your wiki or articles dir to faq.

as for the downloading of the index.php, i've only had that happen with misconfigured apache servers. this is probably not bitweavers fault.

x
charles
Joined: 16 Oct 2008

Re: site layout question...

Posted:08 Nov 2008 (08:01 UTC)
Hello xing, and thank you very much for your informative reply.

it might also help to know, that you can rename any dir in bitweaver to whatever name you want with some few exeptions including:

  • install
  • liberty
  • users
  • kernel
  • languages
  • storage
  • themes
so, you can rename your wiki or articles dir to faq.


This is good to know. (:smile:)

Are you referring to mod_reweite here? Or is there a
BW specific tweak/hack/setting for this feature?
Is this documented somewhere?

i don't think there is anything similar to what you're trying to do avaialble in bitweaver yet.

...

the tedious part would be mapping old URLs to the new ones. suppose some of that could be automated but still requires some work.


What a disappointment.(:frown:)

I would have thought that something like this would
have been a pretty big priority. Given that such a
seemingly large number of "would-be" BW users would
already have web sites, and would want (hope) to
integrate their current content into BW in a
manner that is consistent with it's previous state/
layout. As altering it will affect their search
engine rating(s). I can easily imagine that many
site admins have spent a great deal of time and
effort to obtain high(er) ratings. Which means that
all that time and effort will have been a complete
waste of time if they choose to use BW as their
"new" web site. Bummer.

as for the downloading of the index.php, i've only had that happen with misconfigured apache servers. this is probably not bitweavers fault.


I wasn't blamming BW, but it does appear that
there is something going wrong with the Articles
package. I've been Administering servers of all
types since the mid '70's. I can well assure you
that there is no "misconfiguration" with any of
the 200+ servers I currently manage. It only
happens with the Articles package, and even then,
it only happens after I create and save an article -
not prior.

OK. So let's assume I'm willing to discard all the
previous efforts gaining a high SE rating, and start
anew with BW. The site I'm currently attempting to
replace with the BW system is largely composed of
FAQ's on a growing number of topics (mostly programming/scripting languages). What I hope to
achive with BW, is one like the PHP function pages
(those at the php.net site) where users are able to
add additional information pertaining to the function/topic. Is such a system possible with BW?
If so, which/what package(s) should I use to achive this?

Thank you again xing for your thoughtful reply.(:smile:)

--Chuck
xing
Joined: 07 Mar 2004

Re: site layout question...

Posted:08 Nov 2008 (10:43 UTC)
there is no hack needed to rename dirs. you simply:

Rename Directory


cd /path/to/bitweaver
mv wiki faq

and you're set. i forget where this is documented but i do think it says it somewhere... renaming the dir should happen before installation though, since some things in the db might require the path in some places and renaming package dirs in a running system might cause problems.

please note that temp/ is an exception, since the path to that dir can be configured and can be placed anywhere in your system - doesn't have to be placed in your bitweaver root dir.



as for what pkg you should use for your php functions stuff:
i think a good start might be the wiki package with the comments enabled. i would also suggest that you have a look at the StencilsPackage to perhaps set a default format for any given function page.

that should give you a decent starting point which allows users to leave their thoughts to various functions.

x
charles
Joined: 16 Oct 2008

Re: site layout question...

Posted:08 Nov 2008 (11:19 UTC)
Hello xing, and thank you very much for your reply.(:smile:)

tthere is no hack needed to rename dirs. you simply:

Rename Directory

cd /path/to/bitweaver
mv wiki faq

and you're set.


WOW! It's as easy as that?(:surprised:) I wouldn't have
imagined that the system (BW) would be able to reconcile
the package if it's folder/directory got renamed (assuming a fresh install, as you mentioned).

i forget where this is documented but i do think it says it somewhere...

I'll have to do some searching on this. I've gotten pretty frustrated doing searches, and tutorial reading - seems that many (most?) of the tutorials were written for the 1.x branch. The searching leads to frustration, because the matches that lead to comments in the forums, simply open the parent forum, and list every topic in the forum (not just the "matching threads") - just thought it might be worth mentioning.

as for what pkg you should use for your php functions stuff:
i think a good start might be the wiki package with the comments enabled. i would also suggest that you have a look at the StencilsPackage to perhaps set a default format for any given function page.


I'll check it out.

Thank you xing for taking the time to provide such informative replies, it's really appreciated.

--Chuck
xing
Joined: 07 Mar 2004

Re: site layout question...

Posted:08 Nov 2008 (15:47 UTC)
forum links in search is a known bug and we will fix it soon (with some luck...).

it would be great if you could help us update old documentation or at least tag it with some note. it is difficult to keep all the docs up to date since we add new features at a relatively constant rate and the coders are usually quite bad at updating the docs.

x
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