delphi-tips

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Using the URL tips.delphidabbler.com/<n> instead of tips.delphidabbler.com/tips/<n> is much friendlier. Is there any way to do this using the jekyll-redirect-from plugin?

It can be done with jekyll-redirect-from.

However the plugin will create 200+ numbered .html files in the root directory. This could cause a problem if there's ever a 404.html custom error page and the number of tips becomes >= 404!

It may be better to rename tips as tip: it feels more intuitive to me to request tips.delphidabbler.com/tip/42 than tips.delphidabbler.com/tips/42.

Another possibility is to rename tips as id.

If tips does get renamed we would need to add a

redirect_from:
  - /tips/xxx

statement to every tip's front matter, where xxx is the tip number.

Another possibility may be to use a query string for the tip id, e.g. tips.delphidabbler.com/?t=42.

Maybe an anchor could be used instead: tips.delphidabbler.com/#42

But then the main index.html would have to check for the query string or anchor using Javascript and either redirect to the tip page if there's a query string or display the home page if not.

Neither approach looks pretty!

Yet another possibility is to

1. Rename tips directory to tip as suggested above

2. Add the required

   redirect_from:
     - /tips/xxx
   

   front matter to redirect from tips.

3. Add a further entry to the redirect_from front matter:

   redirect_from:
     - /tips/xxx
     - /t/xxx
   

   to add support for urls of the form tips.delphidabbler.com/t/xxx.

This way all the following forms of URL would be valid:

1. tips.delphidabbler.com/tip/xxx (the canonical form)
2. tips.delphidabbler.com/t/xxx (the shorthand form)
3. tips.delphidabbler.com/tips/xxx (the old style form)

Charging the canonical form from tips.delphidabbler.com/tips/xxx to tips.delphidabbler.com/tip/xxx might give Google's canonical form algorithm a headache for a while though!