Friendly url’s in my rails application within minutes

To get search engine friendly urls in my rails application, all I had to do is the following 5 steps:

1. Install the acts_as_urlnameable plugin using one of the following command:

   script/plugin install http://code.helicoid.net/svn/rails/plugins/acts_as_urlnameable/

   or if you’re using svn for your project, install with -x:

   script/plugin install -x http://code.helicoid.net/svn/rails/plugins/acts_as_urlnameable/

   or alternatively you could use piston.

2. Next you need to add the call to acts_as_urlnameable to your model class:

   class Advert < ActiveRecord::Base
   
   acts_as_urlnameable :title
   
   end

3. Now we need to add the migration for the urlnames table where we’ll store our new url names:

   class Urlnames < ActiveRecord::Migration  def self.up
   
   create_table :urlnames do |t|
   
   t.string  :nameable_type
   
   t.integer :nameable_id
   
   t.string  :name
   
   t.auto_dates
   
   end
   
   enddef self.down
   
   drop_table :urlnames
   
   end
   
   end

4. Next we need to override the to_param method in the model class, this will allow us to control what rails use in the urls:

   def to_param
   
       urlname
   
   end

5. Lastly, we need to update the ActiveRecord.find(params[:id]) calls to use the acts_as_urlnameable find_by_url method:

   # GET /adverts/1
   
   # GET /adverts/1.xml
   
   def show
   
   @advert = Advert.find_by_urlname(params[:id])
   
   respond_to do |format|

And there you have it, friendly urls…

Normally your show url for your model would look as follows (if you’re using RESTfull design)

http://localhost:3000/adverts/1

but now the url looks pretty….

http://localhost:3000/adverts/awesome_macbook_pro_17

There is much more you can do with the acts_as_urlnameable plugin, but I’d suggest you read the README file that does a good job of explaining how to use the plugin.

There are also other plugins you can use for friendly urls, here is a list of other plugins:

• acts_as_slugable
• permalink_fu
• acts_as_friendly_param

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