Web Site Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

There are a number of drawbacks in having a very long address for a web page.

• It is harder to read out to people.
• It is harder for people to type in.
• It looks clumsy.
• Some email clients can cause the web address to wrap resulting in a "Page not found" message.
• It can cause horizontal scrolling on your web page.

For example, would you expect a user to type this? (it's an image, you would need to type it in to your browser's address bar, as if it were in a printed document)

Web addresses are composed of a domain name and then the page address or virtual path component for each parent page in the navigation above the page being addressed:

http://my.domain.name/page address/page address/page address

By default, when a new page is created in MySource the page name is used to construct that page's web address.

What can we do?

It's not always possible to avoid long page names.

If the new page needs a long title you can still ensure it has a short web address by going to the box at the bottom of the "Page Properties" tab labelled "Virtual Paths". Here you can pare down the page's virtual path to be something more manageable.

In the following example I need to create a NEW page with a long name:

Figure 1. Entering a name for your new page.

In the screenshot below you can see that the long name of your page translates to a long web address, also known as a Virtual Path.

Figure 2. The long page name gives a long web address.

You can go to the virtual path box and type in a more concise address for your page.

Figure 3. A new, shorter web address.

"But what about an existing page with a long name, won't changing the virtual path cause links TO my existing page to break?"

The short answer to this is "yes". If you have an existing page and replace the virtual path with a new, shorter, one this can cause links on other people's web sites to your page to break.

You can get around this by putting the old virtual path in the box labelled "2" and the new, shorter address in the box labelled "1".

However, after commiting the virtual paths box sorts alphabetically. If your new virtual path is not in the first box by virtue of its alphabetical order you will need to contact the UWA Website Office to set up a server side redirect.

The Redirect Template

Another thing you can do is to use the Redirect Template at the top level of your site to create a short web address.

For example a new page, using the redirect template called "workshop" could be created on a site called "Toolkit:

http://www.toolkit.uwa.edu.au/workshop

Which would be set up to point to:

http://www.toolkit.uwa.edu.au/academic_resources/
learning_language_and_research_skills/workshops/
workshop_programme

Using the unique page ID to provide a short page address

If you look at the bottom right of every page in MySource you will see a link labelled "Location" this is also a link to the page. In the above example the location is given as:

http://www.toolkit.uwa.edu.au/page/26268

This can be shortened further to:

http://www.uwa.edu.au/page/26268

So, going back to our original example:

Could easily be shortened to:

http://www.uwa.edu.au/page/12345

Using the unique file ID to provide a short file address

As with short page ID addresses, it is possible to link directly to the file ID of an attachment in MySource. The file ID is available by checking the Attachment tab of the page hosting the file or will sometimes appear in an address as a number following "f=" for example:

http://www.its.uwa.edu.au/policies/commspolicies/managesuptrain/webguidelines/draftwebpolicy?f=173477

which may be abbreviated to:

http://www.uwa.edu.au/file/173477