Sites provides built-in logic that helps you display user-friendly URLs and links to site visitors. Create rules to rewrite URL requests typed into the address bar, launched from bookmarks, or linked from external websites. You can also create rules to rewrite the URLs for links within site pages. URL rewriting not only makes URLs more descriptive and intuitive for users, it allows search engines to better index your site pages.
For example, let's say that you have a blog site. Without URL rewriting, a blog entry's URL might look like this: http://myblog.force.com/posts?id=003D000000Q0PcN
With URL rewriting, your users can access blog posts by date and title, say, instead of by record ID. The URL for one of your New Year's Eve posts might be: http://myblog.force.com/posts/2009/12/31/auld-lang-syne
You can also rewrite URLs for links shown within a site page. If your New Year's Eve post contained a link to your Valentine's Day post, the link URL might show: http://myblog.force.com/posts/2010/02/14/last-minute-roses
To rewrite URLs for a site, create an Apex class that maps the original URLs to user-friendly URLs, and then add the Apex class to your site.
To learn about the methods in the Site.UrlRewriter interface, see UrlRewriter.
global class yourClass implements Site.UrlRewriter { global PageReference mapRequestUrl(PageReference yourFriendlyUrl) global PageReference[] generateUrlFor(PageReference[] yourSalesforceUrls); }
<apex:outputLink value="{!URLFOR($Page.myPage)}"></apex:outputLink>
Site.lookupIdByFieldValue(Schema.sObjectType.
mynamespace__Blog__c.fields.title__c,'myBlog');
In this example, we have a simple site consisting of two Visualforce pages: mycontact and myaccount. Be sure you have “Read” permission enabled for both before trying the sample. Each page uses the standard controller for its object type. The contact page includes a link to the parent account, plus contact details.
Before implementing rewriting, the address bar and link URLs showed the record ID (a random 15-digit string), illustrated in the “before” figure. Once rewriting was enabled, the address bar and links show more user-friendly rewritten URLs, illustrated in the “after” figure.
The Apex class used to rewrite the URLs for these pages is shown in Example URL Rewriting Apex Class, with detailed comments.
This section shows the Visualforce for the account and contact pages used in this example.
<apex:page standardController="Account"> <apex:detail relatedList="false"/> </apex:page>
<apex:page standardController="contact"> <apex:pageBlock title="Parent Account"> <apex:outputLink value="{!URLFOR($Page.mycontact,null, [id=contact.account.id])}">{!contact.account.name} </apex:outputLink> </apex:pageBlock> <apex:detail relatedList="false"/> </apex:page>
global with sharing class myRewriter implements Site.UrlRewriter { //Variables to represent the user-friendly URLs for //account and contact pages String ACCOUNT_PAGE = '/myaccount/'; String CONTACT_PAGE = '/mycontact/'; //Variables to represent my custom Visualforce pages //that display account and contact information String ACCOUNT_VISUALFORCE_PAGE = '/myaccount?id='; String CONTACT_VISUALFORCE_PAGE = '/mycontact?id='; global PageReference mapRequestUrl(PageReference myFriendlyUrl){ String url = myFriendlyUrl.getUrl(); if(url.startsWith(CONTACT_PAGE)){ //Extract the name of the contact from the URL //For example: /mycontact/Ryan returns Ryan String name = url.substring(CONTACT_PAGE.length(), url.length()); //Select the ID of the contact that matches //the name from the URL Contact con = [SELECT Id FROM Contact WHERE Name =: name LIMIT 1]; //Construct a new page reference in the form //of my Visualforce page return new PageReference(CONTACT_VISUALFORCE_PAGE + con.id); } if(url.startsWith(ACCOUNT_PAGE)){ //Extract the name of the account String name = url.substring(ACCOUNT_PAGE.length(), url.length()); //Query for the ID of an account with this name Account acc = [SELECT Id FROM Account WHERE Name =:name LIMIT 1]; //Return a page in Visualforce format return new PageReference(ACCOUNT_VISUALFORCE_PAGE + acc.id); } //If the URL isn't in the form of a contact or //account page, continue with the request return null; } global List<PageReference> generateUrlFor(List<PageReference> mySalesforceUrls){ //A list of pages to return after all the links //have been evaluated List<PageReference> myFriendlyUrls = new List<PageReference>(); //a list of all the ids in the urls List<id> accIds = new List<id>(); // loop through all the urls once, finding all the valid ids for(PageReference mySalesforceUrl : mySalesforceUrls){ //Get the URL of the page String url = mySalesforceUrl.getUrl(); //If this looks like an account page, transform it if(url.startsWith(ACCOUNT_VISUALFORCE_PAGE)){ //Extract the ID from the query parameter //and store in a list //for querying later in bulk. String id= url.substring(ACCOUNT_VISUALFORCE_PAGE.length(), url.length()); accIds.add(id); } } // Get all the account names in bulk List <account> accounts = [SELECT Name FROM Account WHERE Id IN :accIds]; // make the new urls Integer counter = 0; // it is important to go through all the urls again, so that the order // of the urls in the list is maintained. for(PageReference mySalesforceUrl : mySalesforceUrls) { //Get the URL of the page String url = mySalesforceUrl.getUrl(); if(url.startsWith(ACCOUNT_VISUALFORCE_PAGE)){ myFriendlyUrls.add(new PageReference(ACCOUNT_PAGE + accounts.get(counter).name)); counter++; } else { //If this doesn't start like an account page, //don't do any transformations myFriendlyUrls.add(mySalesforceUrl); } } //Return the full list of pages return myFriendlyUrls; } }