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Set the addresses of your pages

In this guide you create a new kind of content, guides, whose entries live at addresses such as /guides/install-the-app, with a listing page at /guides. Then you change one address and see the old one forward to the new one. At the end you know how Hatamoto builds every address on your site.

Before you start

  • A running Hatamoto site you can sign in to as an owner, the role that can change every setting.
  • A plan for the address you want. Changing it later is safe, but old links then depend on forwards.

Two terms help. A content type is a kind of content, such as a page or a post, which decides its fields and its address. A slug is the short name in an address, such as install-the-app in /guides/install-the-app. Each content type has a URL pattern, the rule that builds the address from the slug.

The built-in page and post types keep their fixed addresses (/<slug> for pages and /blog/<slug> for posts), so you set an address on a content type of your own.

Steps

  1. In the admin, open Settings > Entity types (/admin/settings/types) and select New entity type.
  2. In Basics, set Name to Guide. The Slug fills in as guide. It identifies the type and cannot be changed later.
  3. In Fields, choose Rich text under Add a field and select Add field. Set its Label to Content. This is the box your editors write in.
  4. In Addresses and search, set Address pattern to: 
    /guides/{slug}

    Below the field, an example appears as you type:

    Example: /guides/example-page

    {slug} is replaced by each entry's slug. The pattern must start with / and end with {slug} (or {path}, for pages nested under other pages).

  5. Set Archive address to /guides and Archive title to Guides. The archive is the page that lists every guide, and the section name in each guide's breadcrumb.
  6. Select Save.
  7. Open Entities, select Create, then Guide.
  8. Set Name to Install the app. Leave Slug empty: Hatamoto makes install-the-app from the name.
  9. Write a line in Content, set Status to Published, and select Save.
  10. Open https://example.com/guides/install-the-app. Your guide is there. https://example.com/guides lists it.
  11. Open the guide again, change Slug to install, and save.
  12. Open the old address, https://example.com/guides/install-the-app. Your browser lands on /guides/install. Hatamoto added a 301 redirect, a permanent forward from the old address to the new one, so links and search results that use the old address keep working. You find it in Settings > Redirects.

    The same happens for a whole content type: when you change its address pattern, every published entry that moves gets a forward from its old address. A redirect you wrote yourself is never replaced.

Check it worked

Run this from a terminal to see the forward:

curl -sI https://example.com/guides/install-the-app | grep -iE '^(HTTP|location)'
HTTP/2 301
location: /guides/install

The first line may read HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently, depending on the web server in front of Hatamoto.

Then open https://example.com/sitemap.xml. It now lists a sitemap-guides.xml file, because each content type's first address segment, guides, becomes its group in the sitemap. That file lists /guides and /guides/install, and not the old address.

If saving the content type shows an error under Address pattern, the pattern breaks a rule: it must start with /, end with {slug} or {path}, and use each token once as a whole segment (/a-{slug} is not allowed). The reason is shown under the field.

If the new address answers "not found", check that the guide's Status is Published. Drafts have no public address.

Addresses can also hold dates (/news/{year}/{month}/{slug}), nested pages (/{path}) and more. Every token and setting is in URL patterns. If you are moving a whole site, load the old addresses as redirects first; see Redirects after migration.

Next steps