Editing .htaccess to set a Pages Extension created page as homepage

[[Dimetrodon]]

Hello.

I am trying to create a homepage for my site that loads up as the site's actual homepage. It is a Pages Extension created page, with the path being [my url]/site-index

But basically, I want it to be the homepage when someone visits the site's root basically, as opposed to showing the phpBB index page.

I would drop a custom php file and set that file as my homepage in .htaccess and create another style html template for it, but I do not want to have to edit raw html every single time I need to make changes to it. I can, but being able to use BBCode and edit from the ACP is easier.

[Kailey]

I haven't tested this with the latest version of phpBB, but a while ago I remember that you could copy (not move) the .htaccess and app.php files to the site's root directory and edit the $phpbb_root_path variable to your board's path and it would cause the pages extension to not require the board path in the URL.

[[Dimetrodon]]

I haven't tested this with the latest version of phpBB, but a while ago I remember that you could copy (not move) the .htaccess and app.php files to the site's root directory and edit the $phpbb_root_path variable to your board's path and it would cause the pages extension to not require the board path in the URL.

Thank you, but I installed phpBB to the root path, so that is not an option for me.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have, but still. It is what I did.

[thecoalman]

I don't know if this going to work but you can try DirectoryIndex site-index

DirectoryIndex sets the default file(s) when the request only has trailing slash but it's usually set to index.php, index.html etc.

Additionally I don't know if any phpBB links use only trailing slash.

[Mick]

DirectoryIndex seems to be the way to go imo and I don’t think trailing forward slashes matter one way or the other. I’ve just tested a couple here and on a test board with and without trailing forward slashes with no issues.

[thecoalman]

The reason I'm not sure it's going to work is because I don't know if it expects a file to exist. DirectoryIndex site-index.php is going to work without question if the file site-index.php exists.

[AbuHossam]

Following..

[[Dimetrodon]]

Thank you both for the replies, but...

The reason I'm not sure it's going to work is because I don't know if it expects a file to exist.

It does expect a file to exist, unfortunately. Unless there is an obscure command for .htaccess that exists that no one has thought of, I am likely going to have to drop a custom .php file and style template for it as opposed to using the extension. I am NOT going to use a simple redirect page as that would look suspicious and anti-malware products might think the site is hacked.

A bit inconvenient but small potatoes.

[NeoDev]

Place in root .htaccess file

Code: Select all

RewriteRule "^$" "/url/to/file" [R]

There is no other (easy) way to do what you want in Apache. I wouldn't worry about it looking suspicious, same site redirects are HTTP 101 and a common everyday occurrence.

[[Dimetrodon]]

Thank you, but I cannot use this to redirect to a Pages Extension related page.

I'm just going to drop a custom home.php file in my root directory, and then add something like this to .htaccess

Code: Select all

#Alternate default index pages
DirectoryIndex home.php index.php index.htm index.html

So my new file becomes the site's new index page.


I realize what I was trying to originally do with the Pages Extension is impossible with my current setup.

Edit: I was wrong. Please disregard the striked through line as I did use a redirect page after all.
------

Thank you everyone. This can probably be marked as solved.

[[Dimetrodon]]

Just making the redirect file public for anyone who wishes to try this. I did not want to do a simple one-line redirect file and doing this seems to work great. I set home.php as my homepage with .htaccess (See post above.) home.php then redirects to examplewebsitehere.com/home
My home.php file:

Code: Select all

<?php 
define('IN_PHPBB', true);
$phpbb_root_path = (defined('PHPBB_ROOT_PATH')) ? PHPBB_ROOT_PATH : './';
$phpEx = substr(strrchr(__FILE__, '.'), 1);
include($phpbb_root_path . 'common.' . $phpEx);

// Start session management
$user->session_begin();
$auth->acl($user->data);
$user->setup();


redirect(append_sid("{$phpbb_root_path}home"));

?>

I don't need any more assistance. Just posting what worked for me.

I was also wrong. I could use Pages after all, just with a workaround.