Forum OpenACS Q&A: package name in the url

This can be achieved via a .vuh (virtual url handler) file.
Here is an example for achieving this for xowiki
http://alice.wu-wien.ac.at:8000/xowiki-doc/#package-prefix
You will have to alter this file to be useful for other packages.

The magic is in the request processor and is - when looking at the details - quite tricky. The .vuh files are called in situations, where a path could not be resolved by other means (from e.g. files and the site node entries).

use find YOUR_INSTALLATION/openacs-4/packages/acs* -name index.vuh to see, what .vuh files are in use in your installation.

Here is a simple example of an index.vuh file to test cases, when the vuh file is called. Save it under openacs-4/openacs-4/www/index.vuh" and then try "http://hostname/schnabbelbrnft";

util_user_message -message "Hey, you called [ns_conn url]"
if {[ns_conn url] ne "/"} {
  ad_returnredirect /
} else {
 rp_internal_redirect /packages/acs-subsite/www/index.tcl
}

You can redirect to every package you like, as in the xowiki-case to an instance /xowiki.

The .vuh files don't have to be watched, they are sourced upon requests.

Robert

I do exactly this for Fancydress - http://www.fancydress.com/ is the same as http://www.fancydress.com/shop/ (/shop is were the ecommerce package is mounted).

Its quite straightforward. Assuming that you have a subsite for the root of your site, you simply add an index.vuh file to the /www directory of the acs-subsite package and rename the existing index.tcl and index.adp pair in the same directory.

My index.vuh contains the following:

    set url [ad_conn extra_url]
    set ecommerce_root [acs_package_root_dir ecommerce]
    set file "$ecommerce_root/www/$url"
    
    rp_internal_redirect -absolute_path $file

You have to ensure that no subsite files match your package files (hence renaming the index pair) but otherwise it seems to work fine and has been in production for the last two years.

- Steve