I am trying to mask the URL that is shown in the address bar.
I have managed to create a web site document and got that working OK. So now when someone types http://ourdomain/ it correctly goes to http://ourdomain/ourdb.nsf/ourform?openform. The web site document actually just points to ourdb.nsf, the about database properties then take care of moving it on the correct form.
What I can’t quite figure out how to do is use a redirection or substitution rule to effectively mask the URL in the browser.
I would like the users to put http://ourdomain/ into their browsers, the server know that it then needs to move them on to ourdb.nsf the database know that it then needs to go to ourform?openform but all the users see in the address bar is http://ourdomain/
Just in case anyone else ever wonders how to do this below is my solution to the problem.
Proposed solution:
Change the Home page URL to “/ourdb.nsf/index”
Create a redirection rule moving “/” to “/ourdb.nsf/index”
Rename the alias of the element that you want to open with to “index”.
That way when someone enters http://yourdomain/ into the browser it will automatically get forwarded onto the element in your database that has the alias “index”. This matches the value in the home page URL field and therefore the masking works. The other good feauty of doing it this way is that if you then want to change the element you open by default all you need to do is change the alias of that element.
Hope it helps someone else out.
PS - in the server document I found that I had to empty the field where you specify the ‘fully qualified internet host name’. Not sure if this is 100% necessary but would be something else to check if it doesn’t work for you.