Change slug before publish

Feedback Feature requests
1

Hello,

I want to change slug before publish.
The current writefreely convert h1 header(title) to the slug.
However, if “Kanji” is included, the slug is similar to the image below:

https://write.mimikun.jp/mimikun/change-slug-before-publish

(I can’t post 2 or more images)

Thanks.

2

We do in fact need this for several reasons, including (I mentioned this case somewhere here) that if you change the slug after publish, the existing federation for that post will have a broken link using the original slug.

1 Like
3

Just came here to post that very same request :sweat_smile:

I am endlessly confused by why some options can or cannot be set depending on whether:

  • you’re creating a draft (can choose blog but cannot choose date and cannot choose slug)
  • you’re editing a draft (can’t choose blog, cannot choose date and cannot choose slug)
  • you’re editing a published article (can edit everything)

This makes basic tasks needlessly confusing and cumbersome

Related discussion: Publishing a draft post, workflow

4

There is a workaround to this that is easy. Publish the post with the slug as the title. Then right after publishing it, edit the post and put in the proper title.

For instance, on my photo-blog I use numbers as slugs. But the title I want to use is a date. So here is what it looks like when I publish:

# 032
March 18, 2021 - 9:00 AM

Content goes here

Then after it is published, i edit the post and change it to look like this:

# March 18, 2021 - 9:00 AM

Content goes here

And I’m done. I have the slug that I want and the title that I want in less than 10 seconds of editing. I know this is not a fix, just a workaround. But it works for this issue to the point that I didn’t really think of it as an issue anymore.

3 Likes
5

I feel like in order to use the interface of Write Freely one has to learn all those little workarounds and it kind of gets in the way of actually writing. On one hand it’s a good thing those issues are kind of minor and seem relatively easy to fix, on the other I can see that some of these issues are quite old and it makes me worried

6

I’d like to be able to set custom links for posts too before I publish them. Is there a way to edit post URLs before they're published?

7

I hate to bump something so old, but I can’t believe this is still not a thing… Is there really still no way to set a slug before we publish a post without having to do some kind of workaround?

8

I’ve just come back to using writefreely, and forgot about the url slug until I posted again.

I do not see the url being based on the heading as an an urgent issue to fix, due to the fact that it has been explained as to why it is the way it is, and there is a way to make the url slug whatever you wish and then edit the post afterwards to change the title. Knowing this workaround for new users is the only hiccup in the process.

I think… due to how the original software worked when first released, as a minimal markdown input page and that was it, I can understand these design decisions that now seem to be stuck in place. Matt being the sole dev, I can imagine other things have higher priorities than this. The fact that this issue resides in the writefreely section of this forum, I can presume means demands are being made for unpaid labour.

Heh, even Hugo has “weird” workarounds for making the url slug what you want, and can be different dependent on hugo theme used. I have used a bunch of blog/static site creation tools, and have ended up back on writefreely after 2 years of moving my blog between a bunch, simply because it has the right balance of usability and simplicity.

I am not paying for writefreely - however I did pay for write.as back when I did not have the skill-set to self host. I really do need to make a donation at some point though, it is brilliant software @matt
I don’t usually arse-kiss, but being a dev is a thankless task so maybe some positive feedback will offset the negative somewhat.

1 Like
9

Hey, thanks for this. I didn’t realize how negative my remark sounded until rereading it after your reply. And I agree it’s not an urgent issue per se, I just felt like I was missing something. Like it’s something I should be able to do and just wasn’t finding it. Didn’t mean to sound “demanding” by any means.

But I am currently using write.as, not writefreely, and I only replied here since the thread already existed, rather than making a whole new one. Maybe there was a better way/place to ask about this?

Anyway, you’re absolutely right, being a dev is a thankless job. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about write.as and writefreely after the last few years of using them on and off! Definitely my favorite blogging platform by a mile!

1 Like
10

hah yeah I am very guilty of doing that - how it sounds in my head is not always how it looks when written out :laughing:

1 Like