In ExpressionEngine’s version 1.6.5 url_title creation was modified to allow dashes, underscores, and periods regardless of the separator preference, and to allow uppercase characters.
For some projects pre-1.6.5 method of automatic url_title creation suits better.
To revert to older method you will need to use a hack - to change two functions with their pre-1.6.5 versions.
First, open file system/core/core.regex.php, find the function create_url_title() which is approximately at the line 980:
function create_url_title($str, $lowercase = FALSE)
{
global $PREFS;
if (function_exists('mb_convert_encoding'))
{
$str = mb_convert_encoding($str, 'ISO-8859-1', 'auto');
}
elseif(function_exists('iconv') AND ($iconvstr = @iconv('', 'ISO-8859-1', $str)) !== FALSE)
{
$str = $iconvstr;
}
else
{
$str = utf8_decode($str);
}
if ($lowercase === TRUE)
{
$str = strtolower($str);
}
$str = preg_replace_callback('/(.)/', array($this, "convert_accented_characters"), $str);
$str = strip_tags($str);
// Use dash or underscore as separator
$replace = ($PREFS->ini('word_separator') == 'dash') ? '-' : '_';
$trans = array(
'&\#\d+?;' => '',
'&\S+?;' => '',
'\s+' => $replace,
'[^a-z0-9\-\._]' => '',
$replace.'+' => $replace,
$replace.'$' => $replace,
'^'.$replace => $replace,
'\.+$' => ''
);
foreach ($trans as $key => $val)
{
$str = preg_replace("#".$key."#i", $val, $str);
}
$str = trim(stripslashes($str));
return $str;
}
Change it to:
/** -------------------------------------------------
/** Create URL Title
/** -------------------------------------------------*/
function create_url_title($str)
{
global $PREFS;
if (function_exists('mb_convert_encoding'))
{
$str = mb_convert_encoding($str, 'ISO-8859-1', 'auto');
}
elseif(function_exists('iconv') AND ($iconvstr = @iconv('', 'ISO-8859-1', $str)) !== FALSE)
{
$str = $iconvstr;
}
else
{
$str = utf8_decode($str);
}
$str = preg_replace_callback('/(.)/', array($this, "convert_accented_characters"), $str);
$str = strip_tags(strtolower($str));
$str = preg_replace('/\&#\d+\;/', "", $str);
// Use dash as separator
if ($PREFS->ini('word_separator') == 'dash')
{
$trans = array(
"_" => '-',
"\&\#\d+?\;" => '',
"\&\S+?\;" => '',
"['\"\?\.\!*\$\#@%;:,\_=\(\)\[\]]" => '',
"\s+" => '-',
"\/" => '-',
"[^a-z0-9-_]" => '',
"-+" => '-',
"\&" => '',
"-$" => '',
"^-" => ''
);
}
else // Use underscore as separator
{
$trans = array(
"-" => '_',
"\&\#\d+?\;" => '',
"\&\S+?\;" => '',
"['\"\?\.\!*\$\#@%;:,\-=\(\)\[\]]" => '',
"\s+" => '_',
"\/" => '_',
"[^a-z0-9-_]" => '',
"_+" => '_',
"\&" => '',
"_$" => '',
"^_" => ''
);
}
foreach ($trans as $key => $val)
{
$str = preg_replace("#".$key."#", $val, $str);
}
$str = trim(stripslashes($str));
return $str;
}
Then open the file system/cp/cp.publish.php, find the function liveUrlTitle() which is approximately at the line line 834:
/** ------------------------------------
/** Live URL Title Function
/** -------------------------------------*/
function liveUrlTitle()
{
var defaultTitle = '{$default_entry_title}';
var NewText = document.getElementById("title").value;
if (defaultTitle != '')
{
if (NewText.substr(0, defaultTitle.length) == defaultTitle)
{
NewText = NewText.substr(defaultTitle.length)
}
}
NewText = NewText.toLowerCase();
var separator = "{$word_separator}";
// Foreign Character Attempt
var NewTextTemp = '';
for(var pos=0; pos<NewText.length; pos++)
{
var c = NewText.charCodeAt(pos);
if (c >= 32 && c < 128)
{
NewTextTemp += NewText.charAt(pos);
}
else
{
{$foreign_replace}
}
}
var multiReg = new RegExp(separator + '{2,}', 'g');
NewText = NewTextTemp;
NewText = NewText.replace('/<(.*?)>/g', '');
NewText = NewText.replace(/\s+/g, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(/\//g, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(/[^a-z0-9\-\._]/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/\+/g, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(multiReg, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(/-$/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/_$/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/^_/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/^-/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/\.+$/g,'');
if (document.getElementById("url_title"))
{
document.getElementById("url_title").value = "{$url_title_prefix}" + NewText;
}
else
{
document.forms['entryform'].elements['url_title'].value = "{$url_title_prefix}" + NewText;
}
}
Change it to:
/** ------------------------------------
/** Live URL Title Function
/** -------------------------------------*/
function liveUrlTitle()
{
var defaultTitle = '{$default_entry_title}';
var NewText = document.getElementById("title").value;
if (defaultTitle != '')
{
if (NewText.substr(0, defaultTitle.length) == defaultTitle)
{
NewText = NewText.substr(defaultTitle.length)
}
}
NewText = NewText.toLowerCase();
var separator = "{$word_separator}";
if (separator != "_")
{
NewText = NewText.replace(/\_/g, separator);
}
else
{
NewText = NewText.replace(/\-/g, separator);
}
// Foreign Character Attempt
var NewTextTemp = '';
for(var pos=0; pos<NewText.length; pos++)
{
var c = NewText.charCodeAt(pos);
if (c >= 32 && c < 128)
{
NewTextTemp += NewText.charAt(pos);
}
else
{
{$foreign_replace}
}
}
NewText = NewTextTemp;
NewText = NewText.replace('/<(.*?)>/g', '');
NewText = NewText.replace('/\&#\d+\;/g', '');
NewText = NewText.replace('/\&\#\d+?\;/g', '');
NewText = NewText.replace('/\&\S+?\;/g','');
NewText = NewText.replace(/['\"\?\.\!*\$\#@%;:,=\(\)\[\]]/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/\s+/g, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(/\//g, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(/[^a-z0-9-_]/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/\+/g, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(/[-_]+/g, separator);
NewText = NewText.replace(/\&/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/-$/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/_$/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/^_/g,'');
NewText = NewText.replace(/^-/g,'');
if (document.getElementById("url_title"))
{
document.getElementById("url_title").value = "{$url_title_prefix}" + NewText;
}
else
{
document.forms['entryform'].elements['url_title'].value = "{$url_title_prefix}" + NewText;
}
}
That is! Now your url_titles will be created as in pre-1.6.5 versions of ExpressionEngine.
UPDATE: This hack is no longer needed since its functionality is available now via URL Title Symbols extension.
Category:URLs Category:URL titles Category:HacksCategory:HowToCategory:Tricks