Remove trailing slash from Sitecore URLs

Our clients once reported that many pages of their site is appearing twice in Google Analytics reports like http://mydomain.com/about-us and http://mydomain.com/about-us/. If they have hundreds of pages in site then their report is going to be very time consuming to collect unique pages and their count. Even having duplicate URLs for a common page can lower down the page rank while SEO indexing.

By default Sitecore (ItemManager.GetItemUrl(Item item)) does not append slash at the end of auto-generated URL (for non .aspx URLs). So, if we use this API properly, no chances of getting duplicate URLs. But chances that developer or Content Author by mistake added a slash in URL or end-user intentionally added slash, then such URLs are surely going to be tracked in Analytic data.

Earlier we thought to create a custom processor in httpRequestBegin pipeline. The same approach we found very well mentioned in https://aidandegraaf.wordpress.com/tag/sitecore-pipeline-processor-google-search-index-trailing-slash/.

But we do not want to give extra load to Sitecore engine and yet this approach needs extra efforts of development & QA to make full justice to any URL. Later on, we learned IIS URLRewrite can also serves the same purpose and thought to use it instead of our custom code as below.

Step 1: Open URL Rewrite Module

- Open IIS Manager.
- Click your Website on left pane.
- Click on "URL Rewrite" under IIS section as shown in below image.
- If you cannot find it, you have to install URL Rewrite IIS module.

Step 2: Add a "Append or remove the trailing slash symbol" Rule

- Click on "Add Rule(s)..."
- Select "Append or remove the trailing slash symbol" from SEO section

Step 3: Set rule to "Remove trailing slash if exists"

- From the dropdown select "Removed if it exists" and click on OK.

Alternative of above step:

As an alternate of above steps, you can directly write below code in your Web.config file. (You must have URL Rewrite installed for this as well)
Note: If you do first 3 steps from IIS Manager, ultimately IIS is going to write below code in your application's Web.config any how. So, both the steps are doing same thing.

<rewrite>
 <rules>
  <rule name="myRemoveTrailingSlashRule" stopProcessing="true">
   <match url="(.*)/$" />
   <conditions>
    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
   </conditions>
   <action type="Redirect" url="{R:1}" />
  </rule>
 </rules>
</rewrite>

That's it, we have a better way to provide unique URLs by removing trailing salsh to have better Site Analytics and SEO indexing!

Apart from this, URL Rewrite is very powerful module, which we can use for multipurpose like,
- Creating Reverse Proxy using IIS.
- Creating Load Balanced Web Farm using IIS
- Other URL rewrites

Get Optimized Images For Sitecore Responsive Websites

If you are having Responsive or Adaptive websites built in Sitecore and using Sitecore Image Parameters to resize images on-the-fly, this post is helpful to you!

Recently while working for responsive websites, we found that while resizing image with less dimensions, Sitecore produces image with more file size than its original one. It's really not expected because it also increases page load time.

Example

Below is the image I found from Sitecore Website's Homepage, which is having dimensions of 660px × 441px and having size of 48.45 kB (49,614 bytes). Image: http://dijaxps1e29ue.cloudfront.net/~/media/Redesign/Common/Heros/600x441/Homepage_hero_600x441.ashx?ts=121514021455931&la=en

Now if I request Sitecore to produce image with less resolution. i.e., with width of 600px. So, it generates an image of dimensions of 600px × 401px and having size of 57.4 kB (58,778 bytes). Image: http://dijaxps1e29ue.cloudfront.net/~/media/Redesign/Common/Heros/600x441/Homepage_hero_600x441.ashx?ts=121514021455931&la=en&w=600

Is it a bug from Sitecore?

No. But Sitecore by default uses "Lossy Compression Algorithm" to resize images, so reducing image dimensions will not reduce file size. Also, Sitecore uses 95% of image quality by default, that will generate image with bigger file size. To know more about it, you can check code from Sitecore.Resources.Media.ImageEffectsResize class ResizeImageStream() function.

<setting name="Media.UseLegacyResizing" value="false" />
<setting name="Media.Resizing.Quality" value="95" />

Reducing above quality setting may give us image with less file size but should we compromize with quality of image?

Then how to solve this?

There is an alternate way Sitecore gives which was the default behavior in Sitecore in earlier versions that is by enabling Sitecore's ImageLegacyResizing. You can know more about it from Sitecore.Resources.Media.ImageEffectsResize class ResizeLegacy() function. You can do below settings for getting reduced file size. Thank to Sitecore Support guy (Paul Kravchenko) for guiding me in this direction.

<setting name="Media.UseLegacyResizing" value="true" />
<setting name="Media.InterpolationMode" value="Low" />

Media.UseLegacyResizing
This setting controls whether to use legacy resizing (ie. bypass the Sitecore.ImageLib library).

Possible values can be:
true
false (Sitecore's default value)

Media.InterpolationMode
The interpolation mode to use when resizing images, which are available on System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode enum. Read more about InterpolationMode. We can any of below values as per our need.

Possible values can be:
Bicubic
Bilinear
Default
High (Sitecore's default value)
HighQualityBicubic
HighQualityBilinear
Low
NearestNeighbor

Again, Sitecore defines these settings in configuration file so values of the setting remains same for each image resize, so not that much useful to get a generic solution. Eager to know if someone has such generic solution to resize any kind of image, by maintaining quality with reduced file size what Photoshop or Paint.Net gives.

Browser Language Based Content Negotiation

Are you willing to change sitecore website content language based on user's browser preferences? We can achieve this using Content negotiation. Content negotiation is a mechanism to serve different versions of a page or document based on browser's preferences.

For example, a user wants to see information in German, if possible, else English will do. Browsers indicate their preferences by headers in the request. To request only German representations, the browser would send below headers:

Accept-Language: de

As an example of a more complex request, this browser has been configured to accept German and English, but prefer German. In such situation, browser would send below headers:

Accept-Language: de; q=1.0, en; q=0.5

Users can set these preferences in the browser itself. Below is given example of Firefox.

How Browser Based Language Content Negotiation will work

Sitecore provides LanguageResolver, which first checks that the Http Request contains language in Query String (using sc_lang parameter) or in File Path. If the language is found, it will use that language as a context language, otherwise will consider site's default language as the context language.

To achieve our requirement, if the language is not found in the Query String or File Path, we will add one more check to see Language in User Languages in Request Header (Or Accept-Language request header). We can get multiple languages in the request header. So, we will give first priority to the language which is available to serve from our site.

We can get the browser's preferred languages using below code in .NET.

string[] languages = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserLanguages;

Let's see how to achieve in Sitecore

Step 1: Override LanguageResolver

Do below code to override Sitecore's default LanguageResolver:

namespace SitecoreTactics.HttpRequestPipeline
{
    public class LanguageResolver : Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.LanguageResolver
    {
        public override void Process(HttpRequestArgs args)
        {
            Assert.ArgumentNotNull((object)args, "args");
            Language languageFromRequest = this.GetLanguageFromRequest(args.Context.Request);
            if (languageFromRequest == (Language)null)
                return;
            Context.Language = languageFromRequest;
        }

        private Language ExtractLanguageFromQueryString(HttpRequest request)
        {
            string name = request.QueryString["sc_lang"];
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(name))
                return null;
            Language result;
            if (!Language.TryParse(name, out result))
                return null;
            else
                return result;
        }

        private Language GetLanguageFromRequest(HttpRequest request)
        {
            Language languageFromQueryString = this.ExtractLanguageFromQueryString(request);
            if (languageFromQueryString != null)
                return languageFromQueryString;
            else if (Context.Data.FilePathLanguage != null)
                return Context.Data.FilePathLanguage;
            else
            {
                return GetLanguageFromBrowser(request);
            }
        }

        // Added function to allow browser based language content negotiation
        private Language GetLanguageFromBrowser(HttpRequest request)
        {
            Language result;
            if (HttpContext.Current.Request.UserLanguages!= null && HttpContext.Current.Request.UserLanguages.Length > 0)
            {
                string[] languages = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserLanguages;
                string chosenLanguage = string.Empty;

                foreach (string language in languages)
                {
                    string[] langParts = language.Split(';');
                    if (langParts.Length > 0)
                    {
                        if (Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem("/sitecore/system/languages/" + langParts[0]) != null)
                        {
                            chosenLanguage = langParts[0];
                            break;
                        }
                    }
                }
                if (!Language.TryParse(chosenLanguage, out result))
                    return (Language)null;
                else
                    return result;
            }
            else
                return (Language)null;
            
        }
    }
}

Step 2: Configure overridden LanguageResolver in web.config

In Web.config, replace the Sitecore's LanguageResolver and add our custom overridden LanguageResolver as below:

<httpRequestBegin>
    <!--<processor type="Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.LanguageResolver, Sitecore.Kernel" />-->
    <processor type="SitecoreTactics.HttpRequestPipeline.LanguageResolver, SitecoreTactics" />
</httpRequestBegin>

There's more

Same way, we can use many other request parameters to negotiate user experience like.

• User-Agent: User agent of the browser, which Sitecore uses in DeviceResolver 
• Accept: Content types the browser prefers, which we can use to provide preferable content types of media or content.
• Accept-DateTime: It is a header to retrieve content of any specific date-time.

We can use all these locale settings to enable them to provide information in the local format.

•  What numeric formats does the user expect?
• How should dates and times be formatted?
• Should measurements be metric (centimeters, kilometers, liters) or imperial (inches, miles, gallons)?
• What is the user's time zone?
• Does the user use Letter size paper, or A4?
• What shoe and clothing sizing systems should be used?
• What is the user's physical location?

Dot or Space in URL gives 404 Error - Fixed

Our application security certification program raised a security issue on our Sitecore Staging and Live environment. "Any URL where folder or file name ends with Space or Dot gives 404 - The resource cannot be found error."

For example, accessing URLs like
- http://sitecore72/sitecore%20/login
or
- http://sitecore72/sitecore./login

Both gives below error. Same, if we do same kind of request on any live site, it gives same error like for URL: http://sitecore/CMS /Sitecore/

Tricks we already applied, what failed:

• Tried to catch this error from Application_Error event from Global.asax, but no luck found. 
• We also tried to handle it from web.config using CustomErrors, but again no luck.

Solution we found at last:

After checking many ASP.NET sites, including Microsoft website, this issue was found on majority of sites. For example, http://www.microsoft.com/security /default.aspx, it gives same error. So finally we concluded that this bug is not from Sitecore side, but it's something what .NET is playing with.

After reading more on net, found below setting. The value of relaxedUrlToFileSystemMapping attribute should be true to solve this issue, by default its value is false in ASP.NET and Sitecore:

    <httpruntime relaxedurltofilesystemmapping="true" />

Now, after applying this fix, the above URL on Staging environment sends user to NotFound error page and on live environment, it opens a valid page by ignoring Dot or Space.

What relaxedUrlToFileSystemMapping attribute does?

It indicates whether the URL in an HTTP request is required to be a valid Windows file path. It determines how the URL in an incoming HTTP request will be validated.

If this property is false, the URL is validated by using the same rules that determine whether a Windows file system path is valid.
If it is true, it will not validate any folder or file name.


Note: Later on we found that Sitecore has solved this bug from Sitecore 7.2 Update-2 by changing same attribute, they have not mentioned this bugfix in their release notes.

Show PDF Thumbnail as Icon in Content Editor

Sitecore shows PDF icon as a thumbnail, so it becomes very difficult to find out a PDF file from a big list of uploaded files. Just imagine, life would be so easy when Sitecore provides PDF thumbnails as the icons just like images!!

It is quite possible and easy to show PDF thumbnails in different dimensions just by overriding the MediaRequestHandler of Sitecore. See my earlier post, PDF Thumbnail Handler blog. You can also find PDF Thumbnail Handler on Sitecore MarketPlace.

Use of PDF Thumbnails Handler

Once the concept of PDF Thumbnail Handler is understood, we can achieve this easily. Do following:

1. Install PDF Thumbnail Handler to your Sitecore and make it up and running.
2. Update PDF item's Icon field. Replace ~/media to ~/mediathumb
3. Now, check Sitecore Content Editor will show PDF thumbnails as icons.

By default PDF icons are available as below image:


The Icon has value: ~/media/36C02213E38441D9BA1AA82DB86A80E0.ashx?h=16&thn=1&w=16, which will load icon of PDF which is defined in the sitecore itself.

As per PDF Thumbnail Creation Handler, by using ~/mediathumb handler by updating its value to: ~/mediathumb/36C02213E38441D9BA1AA82DB86A80E0.ashx?h=16&thn=1&w=16. See below image which shows how PDF thumbnail is shown as icon.

 Let's make PDF thumbnails working in Content Editor

Our requirement is to show thumbnails like below image:

Override MediaProvider of Sitecore, for that you need to do changes in web.config file.

   <!-- override Sitecore MediaProvider -->
   <mediaProvider type="SitecoreTactics.MediaProvider, SitecoreTactics"/>

Below is the code required in MediaProvider class. In the GetMediaUrl function, when the request of any PDF file is there, then replace existing ~/media/ handler with ~/mediathumb/.

namespace SitecoreTactics
{
    public class MediaProvider: Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaProvider
    {
        public override string GetMediaUrl(MediaItem item, MediaUrlOptions options)
        {
            string mediaUrl;
            mediaUrl = base.GetMediaUrl(item, options);

            // When item is PDF and Thumbnail is requested
            if (item.Extension == "pdf" && options.Thumbnail)
                mediaUrl = mediaUrl.Replace(Config.MediaLinkPrefix, "~/mediathumb/");

            return mediaUrl;
        }
    }
}

Wow, let's enjoy easier life with PDF thumbnails in Content Editor!!

Related Posts:
- PDF Thumbnail Handler
- Sitecore HTTP Custom Handler

PDF Thumbnail Creation Handler in Sitecore

I recently published a Sitecore Marketplace module PDF Thumbnail Creater Handler. Basically it allows to generate thumbnail on-the-fly (dynamically) for the uploaded PDF in sitecore by passing width and/or height. This will allow user to request thumbnail for any height or width and the thumbnail will be stored as a media cache in Sitecore.

Requirement

Suppose user uploaded PDF in Sitecore.

• User want to generate thumbnails of the fist page of uploaded PDF. 
• User can choose height and/or width of thumbnails without any configurations.
• If user replaces a new file instead of that PDF, it should serve thumbnail of newly uploaded PDF. 
• Similarly the thumbnail URL should work if user moves/copies/deletes the PDF item.
• Finally, the conversion process should be scalable and quick enough so it does not affect performance and the thumbnails should be cached as media cache too

Below are the outputs of same PDF but different size thumbnails: 

PDF Thumb Original http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.pdf	PDF Thumb Width=300 http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.pdf?w=300	PDF Thumb Width=150 http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.pdf?w=150

Theoretical Concept

I just thought to achieve this overriding Sitecore MediaRequestHandler. Sitecore allows to generate different sized thumbnails of uploaded image files, See how. Why should not I use the same concept to generate thumbnails from PDF? Only concern I looked was to convert PDF to JPG only, but was not that much easy. 

So, what I wanted to achieve:
 

PDF / Thumbnail Details	PDF / Thumbnail Path/URL
PDF Sitecore Path	/sitecore/media library/Files/MyPDF
PDF URL	http://sitecore/~/media/Files/MyPDF.pdf
PDF Thumbnail URL	http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.pdf or http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.jpg
PDF Thumbnail URL Width = 100 px	http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.pdf?w=100
PDF Thumbnail URL Height = 200 px	http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.pdf?h=200
PDF Thumbnail URL Width = 100 px Height = 200 px	http://sitecore/~/mediathumb/Files/MyPDF.pdf?w=100&h=200

How this achieved

PDF to JPG conversion can be done using GhostScript (With GPL License, which is free), which is very efficient and gives flexibility with many other options.

You can read my older post regarding Sitecore Custom HTTP Handler, I have described there in detail.

I created own Sitecore Custom Handlers (SitecoreTactics.ThumbnailManager.PDFThumbnailRequestHandler) to generate thumbnails of media(PDF) items. See below config changes this requires:

    
<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
  <sitecore>

    <!-- Define Custom Handler -->
    <customHandlers>
      <handler trigger="~/mediathumb/" handler="sitecore_media_thumb.ashx"  />
    </customHandlers>

    <!-- Define Media Prefix -->
    <mediaLibrary>
      <mediaPrefixes>
        <prefix value="~/mediathumb" />
      </mediaPrefixes>
    </mediaLibrary>
  </sitecore>


  <!-- Define Web Handler -->
  <system.webServer>
 <handlers>
     <add verb="*" path="sitecore_media_thumb.ashx" type="SitecoreTactics.ThumbnailManager.PDFThumbnailRequestHandler, SitecoreTactics.ThumbnailManager" name="SitecoreTactics.PDFThumbnailRequestHandler"/>
 </handlers>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>    

Handler's source code to process thumbnail and use media cache as below.

namespace SitecoreTactics.ThumbnailManager
{
    public class PDFThumbnailRequestHandler : Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaRequestHandler
    {
        protected override bool DoProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
        {
            Assert.ArgumentNotNull(context, "context");
            MediaRequest request = MediaManager.ParseMediaRequest(context.Request);

            if (request == null)
                return false;

            Sitecore.Resources.Media.Media media = null;
            try
            {
                media = MediaManager.GetMedia(request.MediaUri);
                if (media != null)
                    return this.DoProcessRequest(context, request, media);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Log.Error("PDF Thumbnail Generator error - URL:" + context.Request.Url.ToString() + ". Exception:" + ex.ToString(), this);
            }

            if (media == null)
            {
                context.Response.Write("404 - File not found");
                context.Response.End();
            }
            else
            {
                string itemNotFoundUrl = (Context.Site.LoginPage != string.Empty) ? Context.Site.LoginPage : Settings.NoAccessUrl;

                if (Settings.RequestErrors.UseServerSideRedirect)
                    HttpContext.Current.Server.Transfer(itemNotFoundUrl);
                else
                    HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect(itemNotFoundUrl);
            }
            return true;
        }

        protected override bool DoProcessRequest(HttpContext context, MediaRequest request, Sitecore.Resources.Media.Media media)
        {
            Assert.ArgumentNotNull(context, "context");
            Assert.ArgumentNotNull(request, "request");
            Assert.ArgumentNotNull(media, "media");

            if (this.Modified(context, media, request.Options) == Sitecore.Tristate.False)
            {
                Event.RaiseEvent("media:request", new object[] { request });
                this.SendMediaHeaders(media, context);
                context.Response.StatusCode = 0x130;
                return true;
            }

            // Gets media stream for the requested media item thumbnail
            MediaStream stream = ProcessThumbnail(request, media);
            if (stream == null)
            {
                return false;
            }
            Event.RaiseEvent("media:request", new object[] { request });
            this.SendMediaHeaders(media, context);
            this.SendStreamHeaders(stream, context);
            using (stream)
            {
                context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", stream.Stream.Length.ToString());
                WebUtil.TransmitStream(stream.Stream, context.Response, Settings.Media.StreamBufferSize);
            }
            return true;
        }

        private MediaStream ProcessThumbnail(MediaRequest request, Sitecore.Resources.Media.Media media)
        {
            MediaStream mStream = null;
            
            ParseQueryString(request);

            mStream = MediaManager.Cache.GetStream(media, request.Options);

            if (mStream == null)
            {
                string tempPath = Settings.TempFolderPath + "/PDF-Thumbnails/";

                tempPath = MainUtil.MapPath(tempPath);

                if (!Directory.Exists(tempPath))
                    Directory.CreateDirectory(tempPath);

                // Prepare filenames
                string pdfFile = tempPath + media.MediaData.MediaId + ".pdf";
                string jpgFile = tempPath + media.MediaData.MediaId + ".jpg";

                string resizedJpgFile = tempPath + media.MediaData.MediaId + "_" + request.Options.Width.ToString() + "_" + request.Options.Height.ToString();

                if (!File.Exists(jpgFile))
                {
                    // Save BLOB media file to disk
                    MediaConverter.ConvertMediaItemToFile(media.MediaData.MediaItem, pdfFile);

                    // Convert PDF to Jpeg - First Pager
                    MediaConverter.ConvertPDFtoJPG(pdfFile, 1, jpgFile);

                }

                // Resize Image
                MediaConverter.ReSizeJPG(jpgFile, resizedJpgFile, request.Options.Width, request.Options.Height, true);

                // Convert resized image to stream
                MediaStream resizedStream = new MediaStream(File.Open(resizedJpgFile, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read), "jpg", media.MediaData.MediaItem);

                // Add the requested thumbnail to Media Cache
                MediaStream outStream = null;
                MediaManager.Cache.AddStream(media, request.Options, resizedStream, out outStream);

                if (outStream != null)
                {
                    // If Media cache is enabled
                    return outStream;
                }

            }

            // If Media cache is disabled
            return mStream;
        }

        public void ParseQueryString(MediaRequest mediaRequest)
        {
            HttpRequest httpRequest = mediaRequest.InnerRequest;

            Assert.ArgumentNotNull((object)httpRequest, "httpRequest");
            string str1 = httpRequest.QueryString["as"];
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(str1))
                mediaRequest.Options.AllowStretch = MainUtil.GetBool(str1, false);
            string color = httpRequest.QueryString["bc"];
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(color))
                mediaRequest.Options.BackgroundColor = MainUtil.StringToColor(color);

            string str2 = httpRequest.QueryString["dmc"];

            mediaRequest.Options.Height = MainUtil.GetInt(httpRequest.QueryString["h"], 0);
            string str3 = httpRequest.QueryString["iar"];
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(str3))
                mediaRequest.Options.IgnoreAspectRatio = MainUtil.GetBool(str3, false);

            mediaRequest.Options.MaxHeight = MainUtil.GetInt(httpRequest.QueryString["mh"], 0);
            mediaRequest.Options.MaxWidth = MainUtil.GetInt(httpRequest.QueryString["mw"], 0);
            mediaRequest.Options.Scale = MainUtil.GetFloat(httpRequest.QueryString["sc"], 0.0f);
            string str4 = httpRequest.QueryString["thn"];
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(str4))
                mediaRequest.Options.Thumbnail = MainUtil.GetBool(str4, false);

            mediaRequest.Options.Width = MainUtil.GetInt(httpRequest.QueryString["w"], 0);
        }
    }
}

You can get full source code (of older version) of this module from Sitecore Marketplace.

Update:
Module available on Sitecore Marketplace contains older code, having a bug on media cache that when someone overwrite media files (using detach/attach), it was serving older thumbnail. This bug has been fixed in above code, and will be available on marketplace very soon. Meanwhile, you can download the source code (excluding DLLs) from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1otw7vE3rGTQmU1U1l2TTJHQTA/view?usp=sharing:

Benefits of this approach

1. Dynamic conversion of PDF to Thumbnail when requested
2. Allows to convert different size thumbnails
3. Repeated thumbnails will be served from media cache.
4. Conversion is fast using GhostScript and media cache adds more power.

Related Posts:
- Show PDF Thumbnail Icons in Content Editor
- Sitecore HTTP Custom Handler

Sitecore media url - remove ashx extension

Have you ever marked all your media items are rendered in our page output as .ashx extension? By default, Sitecore renders all media files or images (.jpg, .gif, .pdf, .xls, etc.) as .ashx extension.

The same thing you will find while getting mediaurl for your media items.

You can render media with its own extension using Media.RequestExtension setting in web.config.
It defines the extension to use in media request URLs. It's default its value is ashx, so all media url are .ashx.
So, media's URL will be: http://mydomain.com/~/media/Images/Banner/image.ashx

<setting name="Media.RequestExtension" value="" />

Setting its value to blank will render media url with relevant extension. Now, all your media items will be rendered in page output with its valid extension like, http://mydomain.com/~/media/Images/Banner/image.jpg
Still, your existing URL http://mydomain.com/~/media/Images/Banner/image.ashx will also work.

Image url can have different querystring parameters. Read more for Image Control and QueryString parameters.

Sitecore Item alias - Alternate URL

An Alias is an alternate path for an item when browsing the web site. In other terms we can have URL alias in Sitecore.

Suppose, you have an item's URL as:
http://mysite.com/news/2013/cricket/

Now, you want the same page to be opened using some alternate URLs like:
http://mysite.com/cricket-news/
OR
http://mysite.com/news-cricket/

This is quite possible using AliasResolver in Sitecore.

How to configure

We will create two different aliases cricket-news and news-cricket under /sitecore/system/aliases/. Both items will have same configuration, means both will point to content item /sitecore/content/Home/News/2013/Cricket/ So, AliasResolver read these settings and work accordingly.

See below image how alias can be set for this item.

How can we know URL of alternate URL or Alias?

To see if an alias exists, use the database.Aliases.Exists() method. This will check if both the alias exists and the target item exists sd below:

    // Code from Sitecore.Pipelines.HttpRequest.AliasResolver class
    Database database = Context.Database;
    if (database == null)
    {
        Tracer.Warning("There is no context database in AliasResover.");
    }
    else
    {
        if (database.Aliases.Exists(args.LocalPath) && !this.ProcessItem(args))
        {
            this.ProcessExternalUrl(args);
        }
        Profiler.EndOperation();
    }

    private void ProcessExternalUrl(HttpRequestArgs args)
    {
        string targetUrl = Context.Database.Aliases.GetTargetUrl(args.LocalPath);
        if (targetUrl.Length > 0)
        {
            this.ProcessExternalUrl(targetUrl);
        }
    }

    private void ProcessExternalUrl(string path)
    {
        if (Context.Page.FilePath.Length <= 0)
        {
            Context.Page.FilePath = path;
        }
    }

What to do in multisite environment?

In multisite environment, we can still use this functionality. We can customize the AliasResolver processor in HttpRequestBegin pipeline, where the alias items will be stored in Site specific folder, so, the Custom AliasResolver will search aliases in site folder only. We can create a alias folder structure site-wise, something like,
/Sitecore/System/Aliases/Site-A/Alias1
/Sitecore/System/Aliases/Site-A/Alias2
/Sitecore/System/Aliases/Site-B/Alias1
/Sitecore/System/Aliases/Site-B/Alias2

See below snap:

This structure might change depending on what folder structure you follow. See how code will go for Custom AliasResolver:

namespace SitecoreTactics.Pipelines.HttpRequestBegin
{
class CustomAliasResolver : AliasResolver
{
    public new void Process(HttpRequestArgs args)
    {
        Assert.ArgumentNotNull(args, "args");

        if (!Settings.AliasesActive)
        {
            Tracer.Warning("Aliases are not active.");
        } 
        else 
        {
            Sitecore.Data.Database database = Sitecore.Context.Database;
            if (database == null)
            {
                Tracer.Warning("There is no context database in AliasResover.");
            }

            Item aliasItem = getAliasItem(args);
            if (aliasItem != null)
            {
                LinkField linkField = aliasItem.Fields["Linked item"];
                if (linkField != null)
                {
                    Item AliasLinkedTo = Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem(linkField.TargetID);

                    if (AliasLinkedTo != null)
                    {
                        Sitecore.Context.Item = AliasLinkedTo;
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    base.Process(args);
                }
            }
        }            
    }

    /// 

    /// Gets the alias item.
    /// 
    /// The args.
    /// 
    private Item getAliasItem(HttpRequestArgs args) 
    {
        string siteName = Sitecore.Context.Site.RootPath.ToLower();

        if (args.LocalPath.Length > 1)
        {
            Item aliasItem = Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem("/sitecore/system/Aliases/" + siteName + "/" + args.LocalPath);
            if (aliasItem != null)
            {
                return aliasItem;
            }                
        }

        return null;
    }
}
}

Read more about Sitecore alias:

- Sitecore language based Alias
- Sitecore Alias for multisite solution - Marketplace Module

Sitecore friendly URL | Remove or change URL extension

Do you want to achieve friendly URL means remove .aspx extension or want to change .aspx extension to .asp, .php, etc. then this blog is for you!

Suppose we have original URL like this:
http://mysite.com/aboutme.aspx

We can achieve Friendly URL / Remove URL extension:
http://mysite.com/aboutme/

We can change URL Extension too:
http://mysite.com/aboutme.php
OR
http://mysite.com/aboutme.asp

We can achieve any of below URLs with few changes in Sitecore. We are going to achieve

1. How the above URL requests will be served
2. How all URLs generated by that request will follow same URL format.

 Let's see how.

How to achieve friendly url?

Sitecore architecture has inbuilt facility to achieve friendly URLs.
In Web.config, find below line and set addaspxextension="false", which simply removes aspx extension from generated URLs:

<add addaspxextension="false" alwaysincludeserverurl="false" encodenames="true" languageembedding="never" languagelocation="filePath" name="sitecore" shortenurls="true" type="Sitecore.Links.LinkProvider, Sitecore.Kernel" usedisplayname="false" />

Doing these change, Sitecore will respond to any friendly URL, also will generate all friendly URLs only. See below snap how we achieved.

How to change URL extension from .aspx to .asp, .html, etc.?

First thing is, Sitecore will support all the extensions which are Allowed from IIS. Second thing is, Sitecore itself has Allowed and Blocked extension list. So, all allowed extensions are by default accepted by Sitecore.

Any customized extension should work

You might be knowing all Sitecore processors in HttpRequestBegin pipeline. Using ItemResolver, Sitecore determines context item by the actual path from the URL without considering the extension. Means, whether extension is .aspx, .asp, .php, or even your name say .yogesh, not an issue, Sitecore will allow it and render page. :) Just thing to note, that extension should be allowed from Sitecore configurations.

See how to configure in web.config:

<preprocessRequest help="Processors should derive from Sitecore.Pipelines.PreprocessRequest.PreprocessRequestProcessor">
   <!-- Few processors might be there -->
   <processor type="Sitecore.Pipelines.PreprocessRequest.FilterUrlExtensions, Sitecore.Kernel">
      <param desc="Allowed extensions (comma separated)">aspx, ashx, asmx, asp, php, yogesh</param>
      <param desc="Blocked extensions (comma separated)">*</param>
      <param desc="Blocked extensions that stream files (comma separated)">*</param>
      <param desc="Blocked extensions that do not stream files (comma separated)"></param>
   </processor>
   
</preprocessRequest>

Now you can request any Sitecore page using asp, php or yogesh extension.

Page should generate all link by replacing the .aspx extension

Suppose we want to generate page urls with .asp extension.

For this, we have to set addaspxextension="true" means Sitecore will now generate URLs with .aspx extension. When the page is generating links of page output, we will replace the .aspx extension with .asp extension.

For that, we will change existing Link Provider with our customized one. See Web.config change.

<linkManager defaultProvider="sitecore">
      <providers>
        <!-- Comment below line which is default setting in Sitecore -->
        <!-- <add name="sitecore" type="Sitecore.Links.LinkProvider, Sitecore.Kernel" addAspxExtension="true" alwaysIncludeServerUrl="false" encodeNames="true" languageEmbedding="asNeeded" languageLocation="filePath" lowercaseUrls="false" shortenUrls="true" useDisplayName="false" /> -->

        <!-- Add our customized link provider -->
        <add name="sitecore" type="SitecoreTactics.MyLinkProvider, Sitecore.Kernel" addAspxExtension="true" alwaysIncludeServerUrl="false" encodeNames="true" languageEmbedding="asNeeded" languageLocation="filePath" lowercaseUrls="false" shortenUrls="true" useDisplayName="false" />

      </providers>
    </linkManager>

Our customized class will look like:

namespace SitecoreTactics
{
 public class MyLinkProvider : Sitecore.Links.LinkProvider
    {
        protected static new LinkBuilder CreateLinkBuilder(Sitecore.Links.UrlOptions options)
        {
            return new LinkBuilder(options);
        }

        public override string GetItemUrl(Item item, UrlOptions options)
        {
            string itemUrl = base.CreateLinkBuilder(options).GetItemUrl(item);
            if (this.LowercaseUrls)
            {
                itemUrl = itemUrl.ToLowerInvariant();
            }
            // Replace .aspx with .asp
            return itemUrl.Replace(".aspx", ".asp");
        }
    }
}

See below snap how it will look like:


Hope, it's working for you, Enjoy!!