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HomeHomeOur CommunityOur CommunityGeneral Discuss...General Discuss...can someone explain the odd URLs in DNN?can someone explain the odd URLs in DNN?
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8/11/2009 10:24 AM
 

i'm curious about something i see alot in DNN.....

as i navigate around from page to page, i see some URLs that i don't quite understand. for example, here is a URL i see:

http://localhost/wines5/ViewAll/tabid/70/Default.aspx

this seems to imply there is a folder structure under wines5 like this "/ViewAll/tabid/70/" - but there is no such folder structure under wines5 like that. so...can someone explain what's going on?

 

 
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8/11/2009 10:30 AM
 

James-
Nearly all DNN "pages" are virtual.  They are dynamically created on-demand and do not exist in hard copy (i.e., in files and folders).
 
The "tabid/#" portion of the URL determines the page.  Everything before that simply reflects the menu structure but is ignored by DNN.  The ending "default.aspx" is also necessary unless you have some sort of "friendlyurl" provider active.
 
-mamlin


esmamlin atxgeek.me
 
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8/11/2009 10:41 AM
 

Hi James,

The DotNetNuke FriendlyURL provider converts URIs of the form you describe above into something that is digestible by the framework.  By way of example, your URI would be converted to read: http://localhost/wines5/Default.aspx?TabId=70 (I'm assuming your portal alias is http://localhost/wines5 here).  DotNetNuke may then use the querystring to load the relevant TabId=70 data.

You'll see this sort of behavior throughout the framework.  For example, another URI might read http://localhost/wines5/TabName/AnotherTabName/TabID/999/Ctl/Edit/Name/Value/Default.aspx, and be internally converted to http://localhost/wines5/Default.aspx?TabId=999&Ctl=Edit&Name=Value.

Since querystring values were (once?) much less search-engine friendly than their path-bound counterparts, this behavior improved overall indexability of a site.

Long available (and enabled by default in version 5.1), are human-readable URIs.  In this case, your URI would read: http://localhost/wines5/ViewAll.aspx.  This is a much cleaner URI and I know of no reason that it should not be enabled for most sites (there do exist some third-party module incompatibilities, however).  There are also third-party modules that give you even more fine control over your final URI format.

You can read about how to enable human-friendly URIs in this forum post.

Hope this clarifies things for you!

Brandon

 

 


Brandon Haynes
BrandonHaynes.org
 
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8/11/2009 12:42 PM
 

thanks for the explanations......

this all ties into an issue i'm having involving maintaining the scroll position.  i have a page with 4 xml packages on it. each xml package queries the database and pulls back 5 records. the first 2 are ok since they are near the top of the page. but the second two are below the horizon, requiring the user to scroll down to see them. if the user refreshes one of these two the page is reloaded and the user is returned to the top of the page rather than to the lower part of the page where they were. i've done a lot of research and posted this problem to several forums and i've received nearly 300 views but only one response. i was told to set the "maintainscrollpositiononpostback = "true"" in the web.config - but this had no effect. so they said i needed to set it on the page directive of the actual page holding the 4 xml packages - and this led to my need to understand the urls.

the page holding the 4 xml packages has this url:

http://localhost/wines5/Shop/tabid/68/Default.aspx

so....based on what you guys said.....this should be the Default.aspx page under wines5 right? - unfortunately i set the directive on this page and it too did nothing. i simply can not get it to maintain the scroll position :(

 

 
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9/9/2009 3:27 AM
 

james kisamore wrote

thanks for the explanations......

this all ties into an issue i'm having involving maintaining the scroll position.  i have a page with 4 xml packages on it. each xml package queries the database and pulls back 5 records. the first 2 are ok since they are near the top of the page. but the second two are below the horizon, requiring the user to scroll down to see them. if the user refreshes one of these two the page is reloaded and the user is returned to the top of the page rather than to the lower part of the page where they were. i've done a lot of research and posted this problem to several forums and i've received nearly 300 views but only one response. i was told to set the "maintainscrollpositiononpostback = "true"" in the web.config - but this had no effect. so they said i needed to set it on the page directive of the actual page holding the 4 xml packages - and this led to my need to understand the urls.

the page holding the 4 xml packages has this url:

http://localhost/wines5/Shop/tabid/68/Default.aspx

so....based on what you guys said.....this should be the Default.aspx page under wines5 right? - unfortunately i set the directive on this page and it too did nothing. i simply can not get it to maintain the scroll position :(

 

Hi,

Seems you were new in DNN, just like me in the past few month. But maybe you also new in asp.net. Now I have better understanding to DNN and how it works.

About your issue. I think, Its time for you to change the way or UI on how you think, how you want to achive the result. I think it was not related to the page url at least. I am not sure because I not really understand what you want to do.

Answering to your question, yes Default.aspx is under wines5. DNN using this single file to process all pages in the site. Anything you see in the url is not in the real physical path. During loading URL Rewriter will transform the url into mapped or real url which is unseen by user browser. It is about Friendly URL as our friend post earlier.

Just an example your http://localhost/wines5/Shop/tabid/68/Default.aspx will be mapped to http://localhost/wines5/Default.aspx?tabid=68. Both URL gives you the same page. The first URL used by your DNN because of SEO optimization. Some of search engine will ignore address after ?. DNN application is Search engine friendly by default. You can change to human friendly so that you may see http://localhost/wines5/Shop.aspx. But this will not the solution to your problem.

I left using maintainscrollpositiononpostback in the past few years since AJAX technology raising. It was become history unless you still not using AJAX. It do nothing except scroll your loaded page into the last postback position (same page reloaded). It just like you using old ugly frame because you told that user refresh 1 of 2 page.maintainscrollpositiononpostback should work but since you use DNN, I am not sure where your page is, in module or else. Seem like you want to dynamically loading a few diffrent data into the page. To tackle the job, using AJAX is suitable but it is more complicated than normal postback. In DNN you have 2 choice to use AJAX for ASP.NET or AJAX inside JQuery by using javascript $.ajax(). ajax in jquery is more easier, less time to learn, you can load data from server to do processing in the browser or set it in any inner html element.

If you need more better response, title and your issue should be new/latest, interesting and clear. Another alternative you can get support by purchasing DNN pro if you want

Using DNN you need to know DNN framework as well as the asp.net system because it would make your life easier.

 

 

 
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