Organized, Short Folder Structure Using mod_rewrite

By  on  

I tend to be over-organized when I create the folder structure of my customers' websites. I like using descriptive file and folder names for a number of reasons:

  • Search engine friendly URLS and image names (for image searches)
  • Descriptive file names give users a "preview" of the linked page in the status bar (if the anchor text isn't descriptive enough or the link is an image)
  • I want to be able to tell what a file is when I see the file name

One problem with my method is that long folder names can be annoying to type and can bloat your pages resulting in ugly load times. I use the power of mod_rewrite to shorten paths to files I reference most, image files.

The XHTML

Image

becomes...

Image

The mod_rewrite .htaccess

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^gis/(.*)$ /graphics/icons/small/$1 [L]

Recent Features

  • By
    Interview with a Pornhub Web Developer

    Regardless of your stance on pornography, it would be impossible to deny the massive impact the adult website industry has had on pushing the web forward. From pushing the browser's video limits to pushing ads through WebSocket so ad blockers don't detect them, you have...

  • By
    39 Shirts – Leaving Mozilla

    In 2001 I had just graduated from a small town high school and headed off to a small town college. I found myself in the quaint computer lab where the substandard computers featured two browsers: Internet Explorer and Mozilla. It was this lab where I fell...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Drag. Drop. Lock.

    I've received dozens of emails about my Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Using MooTools article. The MooTools in my article contained a lot of conditional code to require correct dropping per the game and many people requested that I simplify the process and just...

  • By
    Using Dotter for Form Submissions

    One of the plugins I'm most proud of is Dotter. Dotter allows you to create the typical "Loading..." text without using animated images. I'm often asked what a sample usage of Dotter would be; form submission create the perfect situation. The following...

Discussion

  1. Very slick :)

  2. Okay very interesting. How would that apply if your directory structure was set out like this?

    /nr/rdonlyres/2069656a-f68e-4563-b9a5-4b9a9922f7a4/0/transferform0809.pdf

    /nr/rdonlyres/86e6a9ab-1633-4e4b-8790-bff74df03487/0/lamslistpublishedweb11november08.pdf

    As you can see the 3rd subfolder changes and could be anything.

    What if I wanted it to look like.

    /attachment/filename.pdf

    Using the method you mentioned how would it work?

    Cheers
    zeroanarchy

    • efwf

      hahaha melllttttttttt , no one likes you !

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!