Some URL Changes Are Required

When I switched from Wordpress to Drupal, one of the changes I didn't really think about at the time was the WordPress ability to put the date into the URL automatically. Drupal creates nodes for each piece of content by default.

As the site grows, I'll run out of titles unless I plan for that growth. I've been looking for a module that will do that function automatically but can't find one, so I've decided to work my way through each post and manually change them. After the backlog is done, it'll just be a case of remembering to set each one as I post, which won't be a problem as I already do that, it'll just be a little bit different.

I've started to notice that some titles suit several posts that I had in mind, but it dawned on me that I'd already used that title in a different post. Dated URLs solves this problem nicely.

After I switched, I noticed in my logs that some people and aggregators were trying to access posts with the date in them created by WordPress and getting 404 "not found" errors. I did alias some of them to the undated URLs. Obviously another set of changes will break bookmarks for people, I can only apologise and ask you to search for the new URL to the same post. The post titles don't change, neither do the posts, only the URLs to them will.

I also used tags in WordPress to split subjects up, and created RSS feeds for different subjects. I decided not to do that in Drupal as I felt it was limiting me. It just adds another layer of complexity in the way my mind works. I now only have one RSS feed, all the category / tag ones will give a 404 "not found" error. In Drupal I can create new books and link blog posts as chapters of books, in addition to being the blog posts they are. That way I can cover topics in much greater depth in a more flexible way, and provide the contents to you in an easy to digest way.

Since I'm doing it manually, the format I've chosen is http://thistleweb.co.uk/blog/DD/MM/YYYY/blog-title

I apologise for any inconvenience caused.