Where is routePath?

[yggdrasil]

In the past (until v7.1) the URL's on templates where like this with simple smarty tags:

For example:

{$WEB_ROOT}/{$kbcat.urlfriendlyname}

This allowed me to do some nice things with custom URL's like
{$WEB_ROOT}/lang/{$kbcat.urlfriendlyname}

Or other stuff. My choice really as I could edit them on templates.

Now the SEO URL's use the new (broken for me in many parts)

{routePath('knowledgebase-category-view', {$kbcat.id}, {$kbcat.urlfriendlyname})}

Where is routePath in Smarty or even fqdnRoutePath? Where is knowledgebase-category-view? You can see on the last example, the last 2 are regular smarty tags, but the rest are not. Are they encoded?

Just like in the past you could edit sidebars directly on templates, and now sidebars are also encoded and you can only modify with them with hooks...

 

[brian!]

welcome to the exciting brave new world of Friendly URL's, introduced in v7.2 fifteen months ago. 😱

Quote

Many functions and pages of WHMCS can be accessed through search engine friendly (SEF) URLs. The capability of WHMCS to process such URIs is heavily dependent on the webserver environment. WHMCS will perform an initial inspection of the environment and automatically configure the most optimal settings for your environment.

2 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Now the SEO URL's use the new (broken for me in many parts) 

that might be a case of finding the correct Friendly URL format choice - but ultimately, if you're using old templates, they may need a lot of rewriting to work around (sorry with) the feature.

2 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Where is routePath in Smarty or even fqdnRoutePath? Where is knowledgebase-category-view? You can see on the last example, the last 2 are regular smarty tags, but the rest are not. Are they encoded?

it's possibly a Smarty/PHP custom function - i'm not aware of any detailed documentation about its technical specs, nor do I think it's defined in an open file (so yes encoded).

but basically, it's value will depend upon the FU (to use an abbreviation!) setting and adjusts the URL used to a particular page accordingly.

2 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Just like in the past you could edit sidebars directly on templates, and now sidebars are also encoded and you can only modify with them with hooks...

well technically you can still edit them in the template, but I know what you mean - changes were easier back then.

[yggdrasil]

There is nothing exciting about the new SEO friendly URL’s when an obscure setting on the Admin side decides to change all URL’s format in some core code you cannot touch or edit.

I had my WHMCS installation with specific URL’s to language.

Example:

/news/article

faq/article

And language based.

/news-in-another-language/article

/faq-in-other-language/article

Some said this was not possible with WHMCS. It is. But requires some heavy work both rewriting the URL’s in templates, then adding some hooks for the sidebar and having custom .htaccess rules (besides the WHMCS ones) to change the WHMCS language tab them based on the detected URL.

If you go to an article that is based on English, it will of course load the article in English but if you go to the other URL on the same article, WHMCS would automatically change to that language to match the URL. This is how I have it.

The problem with the new approach is that re-writing those URL’s in the templates is not as straight ward anymore with the new routepath.

What is even worse. The new friendly URLs in 7.5 added .html extensions to my news and FAQ articles, so I get 404 error because that was not true before. The old URL friendly setting didn’t add .html extension on the back. I want it back as before, without adding .html to the news and FAQ articles. This is not SEO friendly, its worse than it was before.

Even worse, some URL’s do not work. The renewal link does not work unless I add index.php to the URL. Of course this is hardcoded in the sidebar do I cannot change it without a hook!!!

The search on the knowledge base template was also broken, I fixed this by replacing the post URL with the old format and it works. Strangely, the same new format is also used in the search post for the download section and that works. I’m starting to get really pissed about hiding stuff in the encoded files. Voting works but it redirects to an url again with .html on the end, so you get an 404 after voting an article. If you go back to the article you see the voting message to it works. This would stupid simple to fix if I just remove .html (where that setting is) but I cannot find and I assume its encoded somewhere in the URL friendly setting which means I will have to make a new rewrite rule to detect them and remove it. All because WHMCS does let me access the code to change this in 20 seconds.

Moving the sidebar links to the protected core from the template files was an horrible move. I had to create special hooks for my SEO url’s that are triggered each time just because I was not able to change the link format on them. Now it seems the routepath is also encoded because I cannot find where to modify this. I’m seriously looking more and more a look at the open competition that only cores 1% of its files and not because it has more features but because I’m getting annoyed of WHMCS considering their own customers idiots. I don’t need WHMCS telling me what URL formats you have to use and then changing this on all the templates. I don’t need them to auto generate the sidebars for me either. Just like I don’t want the market store or an option to upload a logo or change the colors. JUST GIVE ME ACCESS to the old plain code where I can use whatever tool I want to make my changes. WHMCS is being dumbed down to the point of no return. Its seems they are really starting to hate developers that use an IDE or prefer to edit things on their own.

Now you could argue, but it has more features…Does it? The way it worked on v5 was more robust and more open to change than today. I cannot even wait to see what happens when they change all URL’s and put all the rest of the code under IonCube where you cannot change anything anymore on the template files. This is marking it almost impossible to create very advanced sites or themes with WHMCS. I should not be hacking my design to fix URL’s. I should not be creating PHP code or rewrite rules to fix URL’s. Is it really this hard to just change links…???

The only way WHMCS is going to keep me in the future is if they decide to have some NDA agreement for some companies where they give them access to the code because otherwise I will slowly move to something I can edit with regular PHP code. I don’t want a black box.

WHY is WHMCS making it harder and harder to make design changes to template files? I’m seriously starting to question if they are not planning on removing themes and template files completely in the future and just offer a boxed site where people change their text and logo that its it. Because this is where it seems they are moving. I’m really afraid of investing more time on WHMCS since at least 1 or more year. I hope something is coming that is more open and friendly for power users and on each new release I look and I don’t bother to upgrade because there is nothing new except for kids and children that want to open an affiliate program selling things with WHMCS. What happen to WHMCS? Some years back, even huge hosting companies where using WHMCS. I remember even HostDime if I remember correctly was using them. They were on part with Ubersmith and other big systems.

I wonder how many big telcos or companies are using WHMCS because no serious service provider will use them if they cannot completely integrate it on their own platforms and fit the software to do what they want instead of working around it.

Edited August 2, 2018 by yggdrasil

[brian!]

2 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

There is nothing exciting about the new SEO friendly URL’s when an obscure setting on the Admin side decides to change all URL’s format in some core code you cannot touch or edit.

I suspect that I was being sarcastic. 😀

and i'm not dismissing your concerns about the feature, it's just that others raised them a year ago.... it is what it is and if you've upgraded, you're stuck with it sadly.

28 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Moving the sidebar links to the protected core from the template files was an horrible move.

worse than that, they did it with buggy limited documentation, no built-in menu/sidebar manager... no normal user should ever be expected to write a hook to change a sidebar / navbar.

31 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Now it seems the routepath is also encoded because I cannot find where to modify this.

the lack of documentation strikes again... if WHMCS was open source, we could at least review the code to try and figure how a function worked... but with it being encoded, that places an extremely high importance on the quality/detail of the documentation... if it's missing (as per usual), then you're left spending time, by trial & error, trying to figure out how a feature works... I don't waste my time doing that any more.

36 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

I’m seriously looking more and more a look at the open competition that only cores 1% of its files and not because it has more features but because I’m getting annoyed of WHMCS considering their own customers idiots.

WHMCS instincts tell it to always encode everything unless the customer needs to have access to a file - i'd much prefer to see it where only the licensing stuff was encoded... especially if they aren't going to employ the staff to write proper documentation... there's an endless loop where only the devs (who can see the code) knows how a function works, so only they can really write the docs... yet they're too busy writing/testing the code, so we don't get to see any docs... so we can't test the feature... which leads to more buggy code getting released... which leads to more work for the support guys or here... which leads to more maintenance releases and the loop just goes on.

i'd hope with access to the code, development would be faster because we wouldn't need to wait for WHMCS to fix issues, we can do it ourselves... i'd really like to see WHMCS be a lot more dynamic, rather than a slow lumbering elephant dragging itself to the next maintenance update... but it never will be.

btw - the trivial stuff that WHMCS intentionally keep secret is ridiculous... they protect the details like they were state secrets that mustn't fall into the wrong hands.

47 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

I don’t need WHMCS telling me what URL formats you have to use and then changing this on all the templates. I don’t need them to auto generate the sidebars for me either.

WHMCS think they know best.... they don't like giving us choices, they prefer to make the decisions for us, often without consulting us first, and we're all supposed to follow like sheep and be grateful for their intentions.

47 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Just like I don’t want the market store or an option to upload a logo or change the colors.

Market Connect was a bad idea that I objected to at the time - I just see it mainly as an income source for WHMCS... plus 15 months later, they still haven't designed it properly.

49 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Now you could argue, but it has more features…Does it?

for every good new feature, I can give you many more that are bad, poorly implemented or just old bugs that never get fixed... i've never been a big fan of v7.

57 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

I should not be hacking my design to fix URL’s. I should not be creating PHP code or rewrite rules to fix URL’s. Is it really this hard to just change links…???

it might be worth throwing a ticket at support, saying you previously did URL redirection this way, how do we make it work with Friendly URLs... they might have a fix / htaccess tweak that would help... if they haven't, then you've lost nothing in asking.

1 hour ago, yggdrasil said:

WHY is WHMCS making it harder and harder to make design changes to template files?

a good question.... personally, I don't mind HOW they want us to make changes, as long as it's easy for it to be done... and for that, the emphasis is on quality, detailed, well-maintained documentation... even with my near-infinite patience, I sometimes lose the will to keep banging my head against the same brick wall.

if another product ever kills WHMCS, it won't necessarily be because it's a better product, it will be because of the utter disillusionment / frustration some users have with WHMCS.... for those users using WHMCS as is with minimum modification, they'll be happy to carry on with WHMCS... but for anyone wanting to modify it, it's like walking into a movable minefield... with WHMCS moving the mines around themselves! 💣

1 hour ago, yggdrasil said:

I hope something is coming that is more open and friendly for power users

it has to be v8 - v7 is what it is and will remain that way... but v8 is the last real chance to send the software in a better direction.... i've low expectations... actually, with each subsequent release, I set my expectations lower, and sometimes they still fail to match them.

1 hour ago, yggdrasil said:

there is nothing new except for kids and children that want to open an affiliate program selling things with WHMCS.

I think you meant selling things for WHMCS.

[yggdrasil]

Do you think WHMCS will someday have an open code version or at least more developer friendly? Maybe for selected companies after some non-disclosure agreement or there is no hope?

I think its just dangerous to rely a business on blindly trusting invisible code (and buggy for that one). Not being able to see and fix things is just crushing my heart at this point. Their competition is looking very attractive and just because they piss on WHMCS by advertising one 1 single major feature. 99% open code and that they only encode 3 files, or 1%. I suffer each time there is a new WHMCS release and have to update...not because of the work it gives me. I happy to merge my changes and custom stuff. But because of new things they introduce that don't work or things they change that worked well...

The product from their competition is so basic that I don’t even care about that. Why? Looks is a taste thing. You can make it look however you want and I don’t need all the modules and fancy order themes. This is true for WHMCS or any other product. And the rest? Well, its open code, so you can add what ever you want. If WHMCS had an open code version, they would rule the market, even major enterprises would use the product as there would be no risk in doing so. Today they are not even looking at WHMCS because of the encoded stuff. As today, it’s mostly an amateurish product (and even looks more now with their store gimmick). I think even a major cloud provider I know moved from WHMCS out to the other competition which is one guy and just for the simple reason its open. There is no risk in using something open code, that is the think they don’t understand. Its like a guarantee and peace of mind. Trying to lock down your customers is bad business. Being open and friendly is what attracts new markets. Even Microsoft has learned this and is very open code friendly today. And I mean open code, not open source. I’m not sure what exactly WHMCS is afraid of. Its not like a legit business is going to pirate their software which is not even expensive.

I’m seriously starting to wonder if they are not just forcing the hand on their bigger customers to decode the product just so they are able to keep using it. Its either that or just provide them with an open version if they don’t want to lose customers and only be left with teenagers running a summer startup. Major companies used WHMCS in the past. Today? I think they all move out to a proprietary solution or something expensive like Atomia or Citrix Cloud Billing. The custom solution came to my mind more than once but then why even do this if there are paid commercial softwares that are open and flexible enough for developers.

I'm going to buy a license from the other guy, just in case and keep it. 2 years back I was not sure they would be around. But they still are, and they are slowly starting to get more interesting customers which means people are trusting them (big brands). They are not going away and even with the lack of features, in the end all I care is the core and be able to grow and develop over that.

[brian!]

18 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Do you think WHMCS will someday have an open code version or at least more developer friendly? Maybe for selected companies after some non-disclosure agreement or there is no hope?

No. 😭

19 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

I think its just dangerous to rely a business on blindly trusting invisible code (and buggy for that one).

i've always had a secondary system running in the background just in case I need to move on quickly...

19 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Not being able to see and fix things is just crushing my heart at this point.

yep - if they only understood that better documentation would make it easier for more developers to get involved with WHMCS, which would be a good thing....

19 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

But because of new things they introduce that don't work or things they change that worked well...

every update comes with 4 things that you potentially have to deal with...

1. new features - often not even asked for!
2. old features, that you might rely upon, removed without warning.
3. old bugs that never get fixed.
4. new bugs introduced.

19 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

Being open and friendly is what attracts new markets.

if you designed billing software today, it shouldn't look anything like WHMCS - the cart should be better (it's the same order process that's been used for the last 6+ years) - actually, when you take a step back, the cart is horrendous when you think of the simple things that it should be able to do, but can't... the admin area hasn't changed dramatically from when I first started, and I thought it looked dated back then... I could go on but i'm pretty sure I said the same thing before v7...

19 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

I’m not sure what exactly WHMCS is afraid of.

control, loss of income, coding quality embarrassment....?? who knows.

20 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

I'm going to buy a license from the other guy, just in case and keep it. 2 years back I was not sure they would be around. But they still are, and they are slowly starting to get more interesting customers which means people are trusting them (big brands). They are not going away and even with the lack of features, in the end all I care is the core and be able to grow and develop over that.

interesting that their latest release is 8,000 files (compared to 8,500 with WHMCS), yet their filesize is 20MB, WHMCS v7.6 is now 75Mb (and 150MB+ when installed).