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Posted to users@httpd.apache.org by Brian Hughes '89 <br...@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG> on 2005/05/20 18:54:13 UTC

Re: [users@httpd] How to make apache to fix the url in the browser?

On May 20, 2005, at 12:08 PM, Flávio Henrique wrote:
> I dont want to make any redirection ok? I just want this:
>
> on my internal webserver I have egroupware installed  
> (www.egroupware.org)
> my clients, when access my egroupware site, see, in the address bar  
> the url:
> http://www.myserver.com/egroupware/index.php? 
> menuaction=email.uicompose.compose&fldball[folder]=Inbox
>
> how to make apache (if this is in apache) send only the  
> "www.myserver.com" to
> browser? no matter where the user goes or which link the user clicks.

OK... so what you want to do is "fix" the URL that's displayed in the  
user's browser, no matter what page they are on, or how deep into to  
the www.myserver.com site? If so, then this has nothing to do with  
Apache, per-se.

What it sounds like you want to do is wrap the entry page to the  
egroupware site in a Frameset that has 2 frame rows: 1 that is 100% the  
height of the window and the second that is * (which is really 0  
height). You set this frameset up as the index.html page of  
www.myserver.com and set the HREF of frame 1 to point to:

/egroupware/index.php? 
menuaction=email.uicompose.compose&fldball[folder]=Inbox

Or whatever the user's "home page" would be. The egroupware site  
doesn't know it's being framed, so it simply treats the top frame as  
the "window", which is what causes the browser to never change the  
displayed URL from "http://www.myserver.com/". Incidentally, this is  
effectively what Google does for their GMail system. No matter where  
you go in your GMail account, the URL is always  
https://gmail.google.com/gmail.

The trick with this, since you're fooling both the browser and  
egroupware, is when there's a link that takes you outside the  
egroupware system, it too, will display in the main frame and look to  
the browser as though it was "http://www.myserver.com/". That might not  
be what you want. Google handles this by modifying every non-GMail <a>  
tag with a target="_blank" attribute that forces a new browser window  
to open when the link is clicked.

Again, this has nothing to do with your Apache settings. You can use  
Apache, with mod_rewrite, to cause one website to look like it comes  
from a different URL, but that's not the same thing as fixing a single  
URL in the user's browser, no matter where they click in a site.

-Brian


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Re: [users@httpd] How to make apache to fix the url in the browser?

Posted by Flávio Henrique <fl...@terra.com.br>.
Guys, thank you very much for all this information.
Unfortunately my php knowlegde is 1% and will be a lost of time do it...

I was just thinking there was a easy way to do it in <Directory> section, in
httpd2.conf.

But, again, thank all you for the tips.

Flávio


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Re: [users@httpd] How to make apache to fix the url in the browser?

Posted by Brian Hughes '89 <br...@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG>.
Yeah, I was originally planning to get into the problems the framesets 
cause. I didn't want my post to come across as an actual 
recommendation, just a possible solution to the stated problem.  I'm 
glad someone else came along and pointed those problems out. I've never 
been a fan of breaking URLs for marketing and/or branding, which are 
almost always the reasons given for doing this kind of thing.

And yes, with some work and a decent knowledge of Regular Expression 
syntax, you can do a very good job of masking the URLs. But, depending 
on the way the system builds its dynamic URLs, that could be a whole 
lot of post-processing, to "fix" the internal page URLs, before sending 
the requested page back to the browser.

Not impossible to do, but potentially a good deal more advanced/complex 
than the frameset "solution" I posted. If the system is a fully 
internal Intranet, then the frames way is definitely the quick and 
dirty way to go. Even though suggesting that actually give me shudders. 
:)

-Brian

On May 20, 2005, at 01:19 PM, Joshua Slive wrote:
> On 5/20/05, Brian Hughes '89 <br...@alum.dartmouth.org> wrote:
>> What it sounds like you want to do is wrap the entry page to the
>> egroupware site in a Frameset that has 2 frame rows: 1 that is 100% 
>> the
>> height of the window and the second that is * (which is really 0
>> height)
>
> Yes, this is the usual way of doing this.  But note that by doing
> this, you destroy some very useful attributes of the URL.  For
> example, users will no longer be able to bookmark links to specific
> messages or places in your forum, and they will no longer be able to
> grab a link to a particular post and include it in another post or
> email to a friend.
>
> If all the content is private (as it is in gmail), then you may not
> care.  But otherwise, I would highly recommend against this or any
> other technique of keeping a static URL.  If you simply want a
> nicer-looking URL, then that is easily accomplished with AliasMatch or
> mod_rewrite.


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Re: [users@httpd] How to make apache to fix the url in the browser?

Posted by Joshua Slive <js...@gmail.com>.
On 5/20/05, Brian Hughes '89 <br...@alum.dartmouth.org> wrote:
> What it sounds like you want to do is wrap the entry page to the
> egroupware site in a Frameset that has 2 frame rows: 1 that is 100% the
> height of the window and the second that is * (which is really 0
> height)

Yes, this is the usual way of doing this.  But note that by doing
this, you destroy some very useful attributes of the URL.  For
example, users will no longer be able to bookmark links to specific
messages or places in your forum, and they will no longer be able to
grab a link to a particular post and include it in another post or
email to a friend.

If all the content is private (as it is in gmail), then you may not
care.  But otherwise, I would highly recommend against this or any
other technique of keeping a static URL.  If you simply want a
nicer-looking URL, then that is easily accomplished with AliasMatch or
mod_rewrite.

Joshua.

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