This guide will cover:


  1. What are URLs and custom URLs?
  2. Making a custom URL for a Website Page
  3. Making a custom URL for an Event / Production
  4. Using the "Custom URLs" page:
    1. See an overview of all the URLs and custom URLs for Website Pages
    2. See an overview of custom URLs for Events and Productions
    3. Fix your .htaccess file
    4. Add a custom URL for any page (e.g. a song)


1. What are URLs and custom URLs?


What is a URL?


URL stands for "Uniform Resource Locator", which is a fancy way of saying "the address of something on the Internet, typically a web page".  In the context of web pages, "address" means something like http://www.website.com/page.htm?age=20&type=ball. Every page on the World Wide Web has a URL (address), including every page in your HarmonySite.


What is a Custom URL?


Pages can actually have more than one URL (address).  If the default URL of a page is overly long, complex or difficult to remember, you can often invent a second URL and assign it to the page, which can be anything you want.  You can create something shorter, simpler and easier to remember.


In HarmonySite, web pages have URLs that look like this: http://www.mygroup.com/dbpage.php?pg=contact (which is not particularly short or descriptive of what's actually on the page), or http://www.mygroup.com/dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=events&id=14524 (which is even worse).  In case you're wondering, the first URL is for a "Contact" page, while the second is for an event.


Because of this, we have made it possible to create your own Custom URLs for pages on your HarmonySite.  Each URL you create becomes a second URL for the page, so that the page can then be reached via either of two URLs.  Using the examples above, you could create new, custom URLs as follows:  http://www.mygroup.com/contact for the "Contact" page, and http://www.mygroup.com/Christmas-Concert for the event.  Each is shorter, simpler, and more descriptive of the contents of the page, and much easier to quote in correspondence or on a Facebook page.


Note that it only really makes sense to create custom URLs for pages that can be accessed via the public (people who are not logged in).  You can create custom URLs for pages visible to members only, but there's no real need to.


HarmonySite provides an easy way to create custom URLs for the following...

  • Website Pages - specifically the set of pages listed on the Pages Administration page, the pages that you can add and remove yourself via the admin interface.  "Website pages", in this context, does not mean any page at all in your HarmonySite.  It's a subtle distinction.  For example, "Website pages" does not include...
    • The page that shows all of a song's details
    • A member's profile page
    • The page where you add the details of a new mailing list
    • etc
  • Events.  Each event can have its own custom URL, if required.
  • Productions (if the "Productions" module is enabled on your HarmonySite).  Productions are really just collections of events, and as such can have custom URLs in the same way that events can.

Having said that, it's technically possible to create custom URLs for any page in your HarmonySite, even ones explicitly excluded in the list above. It's just not as easy.



2. Making a custom URL for a Website Page


You can create a custom URL for any of the "Website Pages" on your HarmonySite.  Here, we'll show you how to do this from the page itself.  (It's also possible to do this from the "Custom URLs" page – see section 4 below.)


To make a custom URL, you need to "edit" the page.  To check if the page can be edited, log in as a webmaster and scroll to the bottom of the page: if there is an edit button in the bottom-right corner of the page, then this page can be edited and you can create a custom URL for the page.  The edit button looks like this:

If you see this button, then you can create a custom URL as follows:

  1. Click on the edit button.
  2. Scroll down a little until you find the Custom URL box:

  3. Enter the Custom URL you want for the page.  For example, if we type "news" here, then the new URL would be: www.yourgroup.com/news.  Alternatively, if we type "latest news", then it would be www.yourgroup.com/latest-news.  (A URL can't have spaces in it, so the spaces have been replaced by hyphens.)
  4. Finally, click Save at the bottom of the page.



3. Making a custom URL for an Event / Production


You can also create a custom URL for an Event or Production. (The instructions are the same for either – a Production is basically a group of Events.)  Here's how to do that:

  1. Go to the Event or Production's page.
  2. Click the Update link – it should be just underneath the title, like this:
  3. Now, click the Public tab.
  4. Scroll down to the Custom URL box:
  5. Just like before, enter the URL you want.
  6. Finally, click Save at the bottom of the page.



4. Using the "Custom URLs" page


You may not need the "Custom URLs" page at all – the above information (in sections 2 and 3) may be enough for you.


However, if you use custom URLs a lot, or you want to do more advanced things, you may well find it useful.


To access the "Custom URLs" page:

  1. Make sure you're logged in as a webmaster.
  2. Click the Admin link in the top-right corner of the page to access the Admin Dashboard.
  3. Scroll down to the "Website Content" section, and click on the Custom URLs link to the right of this.




On the "Custom URLs" page, you can:


  1. See an overview of all the URLs and custom URLs for Website Pages
  2. See an overview of custom URLs for Events and Productions
  3. Fix your .htaccess file
  4. Add a custom URL for any page (e.g. a song)



4.1. See an overview of URLs and custom URLs for Website Pages


In the first section, you'll see a list of all your Website Pages, together with their normal URLs and custom URLs.


This section will look something like this:



If the page is in bold, this means it's visible to the public. You'll most likely only want custom URLs for public pages.


You can click the "edit" icons on the right-hand side to quickly edit any of these pages. (This is the same as clicking the yellow "edit" button in the bottom-right corner of a page.)


If you want to add a custom URL for any of these pages, click on the "edit" icon on the right (circled in red). Then, fill in the "Custom URL" field, just like before (in section 2).




4.2. See an overview of custom URLs for Events and Productions


Below this, you'll see a section called Custom URLs from other tables. This will show you if any Events or Productions have custom URLs. (Note: it will only show you Events/Productions which do have custom URLs.)


This section will look like this:


Similarly, you can click one of the "edit" icons on the right to edit that Event/Production.


If you want to change the custom URL for an Event/Production, you can click its "edit" icon, and follow the same steps as before (in section 3).




4.3. Fix your .htaccess file


Near the bottom of the page, you'll see a section called Ensure .htaccess is up-to-date. What does this mean?


All HarmonySites have a special file on the server called .htaccess.  This is the computer code which tells the server what custom URLs you have.


In this section, you'll see your .htaccess file which looks like this:



When you make a custom URL, the .htaccess file should be updated automatically.  In rare cases, this might go wrong – this would mean that one or more of your custom URLs would not be working.  If this happens, you can fix this by clicking the button which says Update file with all Custom URLs.




4.4. Add a custom URL for any page (e.g. a song)


Right at the bottom of the page, there's a section which says Add a new Custom URL to .htaccess. When would you need this?


In most cases, you'll just want a custom URL for a normal Website Page or Event/Production.  This is easy to do following the steps above (see sections 2 and 3).


However, if you want to make a custom URL for something else, e.g. a song or a poll, you need to do this here.



For example, if you have a song that has a URL of http://www.mygroup.com/dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=rep&id=83, and you wanted it to have a URL of http://www.mygroup.com/auld-lang-syne, you would do the following...


  1. In the Existing regular URL field, enter just the portion of the existing URL after the last "/" – i.e. dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=rep&id=83
  2. In the New custom URL field, enter your own new custom URL for the page, in this case: auld-lang-syne
  3. Click on the Add button.  This will create the new custom URL (by adding a new RewriteRule entry to the site's .htaccess file).