The Path module controls what is known as path aliases or url aliases. These are short, human readable names for regular node URLs. For example, http://www.example.com/node/23 would become http://www.example.com/about by adding an alias labelled "about" to "node/23". This same method can be used to change the URL for any existing link. So, you could label the "aggregator" link as "external-news".

Path aliases can be created when a node is created and/or edited by filling out the path alias field. This field appears if the editing user has the "create url aliases" permission. As well, all aliases can be reviewed and edited globally if a user has the "administer url aliases" permission.

Usage Tips

Your entire Bryght site is completely dynamic. This means you never have to worry about creating file names for any specific page. However, friendly names such as those that can be created using the path aliases are often more memorable and can make site navigation easier.

Two good examples of page names that are typical across all sites are an "about" page and a "contact" page. Decide which pages you want to represent these two, and edit their path aliases to use these friendly names.

Secondly, path aliases can be used to denote structure, specifically hierarchy. By looking at the URL for this page you can see that it is part of the "adminguide" section. If you delete the last part of the URL (after the forward slash), you'll find yourself at the main page of the "adminguide". The forward slash is part of the path alias, and you can add as many as you like, e.g. adminguide/path-aliases/more-info/another-section. You'll notice on this site that hyphens (-) are often used to separate words in the path alias. An alias can't contain spaces, so the hyphens serve two purposes. One is that it makes it human readable, and the second is that search engines can also better understand that these are separate words.

At this time, path aliases are not created automatically. Automatic aliasing based on page title and/or book hierarchy is something that is on our roadmap.