Running Ecommerce Plus PHP v7.4.6

My question relates to setting up a manufacturers.php page with custom <title>, <meta name="Description">, <h1>custom heading</h1> and <p>custom description</p>

Making this work using Vanilla URL's is very easy. And renaming the manufacturers page to brands.php works fine as well.

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But when you activate the Search engine friendly URL's I just cannot get the Redirect to either manufacturers.php or brands.php to work at all.

What happens is the Redirect goes to categories.php?man=all regardless. Sure, that does list all Manufacturers/Brands. But I want to display the brands.php page with custom <title>, description, <h1>heading and description.

Yes, I have followed the instructions. Here is my configuration.

includes.php

// ==>> SEO FRIENDLY EXTENSIONLESS URLs v6.4
$seodetailurls=TRUE;
$seocategoryurls=TRUE;
$detlinkspacechar='-'; // For proddetail.php 'Has Static URL' filename, use dashes to separate words entered
$urlfillerchar='-'; // For proddetail.php page, use-dashes-to-separate-words in Product Name
$seocaturlpattern="/category/%s"; // category.php page URL pattern
$seoprodurlpattern="/pages/%s"; // products.php page URL pattern
$seomanufacturerpattern="/brand/%s"; // Product Attribute Group Name 'Brand' URL pattern
$seourlsthrow301=TRUE; // Enable this when SEO URLs are working to generate HTTP 301 Moved Permanently error advice for Search Engines

// MANUFACTURER rename to Brand
$manufacturerpageurl="brands.php?man=all";
$xxManuf='Brands'; // Appears in Breadcrumb link on products.php listing
$manufacturerfield="Manufacturer"; // (optional) Show Manufacturer field info on the proddetail.php page (I think this is Obsolete)
$GLOBALS['xxManLab']='Brand'; // Change label from default Manufacturer

.htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Search Engine Friendly Extensionless URL's
RewriteRule ^category/([^/.]*)/?$ /categories.php?cat=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteRule ^pages/([^/.]*)/?$ /products.php?cat=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteRule ^brand/?$ /brands.php?man=all [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteRule ^brand/([^/.]*)/?$ /products.php?man=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) proddetail.php?prod=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
</IfModule>

Any advice about why the brand RewriteRule does not work would be very much appreciated.

Gary

Hi Gary
This is what works for me, but if this doesn't help then please let me know and I'll dig deeper...

includes.php

// ==>> SEO FRIENDLY EXTENSIONLESS URLs v6.4
$seodetailurls=TRUE;
$seocategoryurls=TRUE;
$detlinkspacechar='-'; // For proddetail.php 'Has Static URL' filename, use dashes to separate words entered
$urlfillerchar='-'; // For proddetail.php page, use-dashes-to-separate-words in Product Name
$seocaturlpattern="/category/%s"; // category.php page URL pattern
$seoprodurlpattern="/pages/%s"; // products.php page URL pattern
$seomanufacturerpattern="/brand/%s"; // Product Attribute Group Name 'Brand' URL pattern
$seourlsthrow301=TRUE; // Enable this when SEO URLs are working to generate HTTP 301 Moved Permanently error advice for Search Engines

// MANUFACTURER rename to Brand
$manufacturerpageurl="brand/";
$xxManuf='Brands'; // Appears in Breadcrumb link on products.php listing
$manufacturerfield="Manufacturer"; // (optional) Show Manufacturer field info on the proddetail.php page (I think this is Obsolete)
$GLOBALS['xxManLab']='Brand'; // Change label from default Manufacturer

.htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
# Search Engine Friendly Extensionless URL's
RewriteRule ^category/([^/.]*)/?$ /categories.php?cat=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteRule ^pages/([^/.]*)/?$ /products.php?cat=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteRule ^brand/?$ /categories.php?man=all [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteRule ^brand/([^/.]*)/?$ /products.php?man=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) proddetail.php?prod=$1 [QSA,nc,L,B]
</IfModule>

And you don't actually need the physical "brands.php" page as it's all done by URL rewriting to the categories.php and products.php pages.

Vince

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Hi Vince, thanks for the reply.
I tried your settings and they produce exactly the same result as mine.

quote:

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you don't actually need the physical "brands.php" page as it's all done by URL rewriting to the categories.php and products.php pages.

---

RewriteRule ^brand/?$ /categories.php?man=all [QSA,nc,L,B]

The result here is the list of Menu Categories and the list of Manufacturers both appear with identical <title>, <h1> heading and short description.

quote:

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My question relates to setting up a manufacturers.php page with custom <title>, <meta name="Description">, <h1>custom heading</h1> and <p>custom description</p>

---

At the present time the answer is no, you cannot do this if using the search engine friendly URL's, which is a pity.

So perhaps this belongs in the Suggestion Forum.

I believe that the better solution would be to look into altering the URL RewriteRule to Redirect to a manufacturers.php (or brands.php) page. This way webmasters can present a unique page <title>, <h1> heading and short description to visitors and the search engines, like this ...

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And when the visitor clicks on a manufacturer, products.php takes over and presents that Manufacturer <h1> heading, description and page list as usual.

Regards,

Gary

Hi Gary
Ok, my apologies and I missed the point there a bit. But can't you do a bit of jiggery pokery with the title. Just a for instance...

<title><?php
if(getget('man')=='all')
print 'your all manufacturers title';
else
print 'Leading Brands available from ABC Computers Pty Ltd'; ?></title>

The metainfo.php script will automatically detect that the page is a manufacturer page and populate $sectionname and $sectiondescription anyway, but you can interrogate the query string to see what parameters are in it if you want to fine tune.

Vince

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Wowee, that works a treat Thanks so much Vince !

categories.php

---

<head>
<title><?php
if(getget('man')=='all') {print $rootmanufacturertitle;}
else if(!empty($pagetitle)) {print $pagetitle;}
else if(!empty($sectionname)) {print $sectionname . ' | ' . $sitename;}
else {print $rootcategorytitle;} ?></title>

<meta name="Description" content="<?php
if(getget('man')=='all') {print $rootmanufacturerdescription;}
else if(!empty($sectiondescription)) {print str_replace('"','"',$sectiondescription);}
else {print $rootcategorydescription;} ?>">
</head>

<body>
<h1><?php
if(getget('man')=='all') {print $rootmanufacturertitle;}
else if(!empty($pagetitle)) {print $pagetitle;}
else if(!empty($sectionname)) {print $sectionname;}
else {print $rootcategorytitle;} ?></h1>

<?php include_once ( $_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] . "/vsadmin/inc/inccategories.php") ?>
</body>

---

That makes manufacturers.php (or brands.php) obsolete. A very clever solution. Thanks again

Gary

Hi Gary
Thanks Gary and I'm glad it works.

Vince

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