Actually I dont think the extension is quite functioning as it should.

The catid is the unique number the identifies the category that a particular listing is assigned to.

The sobi2id is the unique number that indentifies the listing itself.

The developers of Sobi2 also provide an SEF plug in. It is available for free download.

I had mentioned previously that I prefer to use Joom SEF when I can because of its flexability and overall performance.

Both Sobi SEF and the Joom SEF Sobi extension (version 2.05) allow the user to include or exclude the category name the listing is assinged to from the URL.

Joom SEF has the setting - "Add Categories to URL" - Options No, Last one, All
Sobi SEF has the settings - "Add Category to Entry URL' - Options Yes/No
If 'yes', the name of one of the categories where the entry has been assigned, will be added to the URL. You can change this category later in sef.
Sobi also has the setting - "Add All Categories to Entry URL" - Options Yes/No
If 'yes', a separate URL will be created for every category where the entry has been added. Otherwise, only one category will be taken for all URLs.

I want ony one URL generated regardless of how many categories a listing is in so in Joom SEF I set "Add Categories to URL" to No. Also Add Cat ID to url is No.
In Sobi SEF I would set both above settings to No.

This is the somewhat long winded answer to why there are different catids and why they may or may not generate different urls depending on user preference.

When functioning properly the user should be able to have one URL for listings that have different catid's in the non SEF url.

The following four urls were taken from the "Internal" column of my Sobi SEF table sobi2_plugin_sef
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=0&sobi2Id=17
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=1&sobi2Id=17
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&sobi2Id=17
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=19&sobi2Id=17

With the Sobi SEF settings as above all four of these urls point to the same SEF url.

My issue with the Sobi extenson 2.05 for Joom SEF is that it is generating two urls for listings that are the same even when I have it correctly set to NOT add categories to URL (and add catid to url = no).

The two urls below create two SEF urls when they should only generate one (in JoomSEF using the Sobi ext 2.05).

index.php?option=com_sobi2&catid=19&sobi2Id=109&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&Itemid=190
index.php?option=com_sobi2&catid=1&sobi2Id=109&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&Itemid=190

The second issue with version 2.05 is that it does not rewrite the Sobi2 tags. Sobi writes the non sef url
index.php?option=com_sobi2&tag=mytag
as
/tag/mytag

These tags need to be created dynamically as there are too many to do yourself.

Als the extension does not rewrite the RSS link (there are lts of them).

Sobi write like this:
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=rss&no_html=1&catid=21
to
/categoryname/rss
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=rss&no_html=1
to
/rss


I am not sure if you have the time to fix this or how many you sell. If you look at the three areas I mentioned that would be great.

Keep in mind that Sobi is at version 2.9.2.1. When you updated this extension you would have used 2.9.2. There was someting related to SEF in the changlog for 2.9.2.1.

Regards,

Keith

I thought I would follow up on this post as I noticed one small area you may want to take a look at.

It has to do with duplicate links to Sobi items only from the Sobi2 RSS pages.

Here is an example of a link that is present on a Sobi RSS page.

This is the RSS Page in Question
www.iplastic.com/index.php?option=com_so...k=rss&Itemid=190

The Link to a listing from said RSS page
www.iplastic.com/index.php?option=com_so...tails&Itemid=190

The Link to the same listing everywhere else.
www.iplastic.com/index.php?option=com_so...tails&Itemid=190

Joom SEF renders the above two links as two different URLS.

Notice just the different catid??

J1.5.11
Sobi2 Extension 2.05
Sobi2 2.9.2

Add Conatc to ID=No
Add Cats to URL=No
Add Cat ID to URL=No
Prev Dupl - Use first

Not a big issue, I just thought you might want to know.

Regards,

Keith

2.05 Looks really good.

Thanks for the really great effort.

Much appreciated.

Regards,

Keith

P.S. Would it be possible to send me the updated 2.05 extension? Or would I be able to redownload it?

Upgraded to 2.04 from Joom SEF backend.

Confirmed upgraded to 2.04 in backend.

Observed that extension is not adding the categories to the url path.

Extension Settings
Add Categories to URL = Only Last one (no categories added to url)
Delete old urls - reload page - no categories in path.

Add categories to URL = All Categories. (no categories added to url)
Delete old urls - reload page - no categories in path.

Add contact id - works

Add cat id - adds cat id to category - works

Search, Add entry, Rss - all fine.

Regards,

Keith

Jan,

When I upgraded to 2.03 the listing urls' were not functional.

After the upgrade when I click on my one listing the browser tried to navgate to
www.iplastic.comindex.php/?option=com_so...2Id=3&Itemid=190

and of course I got a DNS Error

Notice the" / " out of place.

I upgraded using in Joom SEF backend. Backend indicates the extension is 2.03. Looks like both files updated(assuming only two files are affected??).

The categories, RSS, Search, Add entry URLS seems to work fine.

I cleared the cache and removed any old urls before testing

Jan after uninstalling 2.03 and reinstalling 2.02 for some reason all my urls worked - no dups.

With 2.02 working I treid upgraded to 2.03 again and I get the symptoms as above.

Repeated this 3 times with the same result. Uninstalled extension. Installed 2.02 (confirmed working) upgraded to 2.03 problem as above.

Not sure what happended from this morning when I tested 2.02. Maybe I did not upgrade correctly. Hope I havent caused you more work than nessessary. My assessment is that the version 2.02 that I downloaded on June 2 works for my needs and when I tried upgrading to 2.03 I had the above error.


Regards,

Keith

Thanks Jan.
Terrific work.
I look forward to the update.

btw - Your product is terrific - keep up the great work.

Keith

Hi Jan,

Following up on this on just downloaded the new version 2.02 right from your site and installed.

I am assume we are both using Sobi2 2.9.1, J 1.5.10 and Joom SEF 3.3.0.

I have all Sobi cache (1-3) disabled.

I have only one listing in my Sobi directory.

Joom SEF extension Settings are
Add Contact ID to URL = No
Add Categories to URL = No
Add Category ID to URL = No
Prevent Seacrh Dup = Use root category

That one listing is still be duplicated as below

Listing on Main (Component) Sobi Page
$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]: /excess-inventory/250-black-acetal-rod
JRouter::getVars() and buildQuery: /index.php?option=com_sobi2&catid=0&sobi2Id=3&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&Itemid=190

Listing in Parent Category
$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]: /excess-inventory/250-black-acetal-rod-3
JRouter::getVars() and buildQuery: /index.php?option=com_sobi2&catid=8&sobi2Id=3&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&Itemid=190

Ref to listing in Sobi Latest Module
$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]: /excess-inventory/250-black-acetal-rod-2
JRouter::getVars() and buildQuery: /index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Id=3&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&Itemid=190


I am assuming we both agree that the three URLs above should al be the same, however they are all different.

After making any changes I cleared any previously generated urls. All Joomla cache disable.

Observations:

Add Category ID to URL setting only seems to effect Categories not listing urls. Maybe its supposed to work that way. An actual example from my site is.
Add category ID to URL = No
example - mechanicals/
Add category ID to URl =yes
example - 8-mechanicals/

Issue does not seem to be related to the contact ID which = Sob2 ID. The add contact id to url seems to work fine (allthough I thought this would be better in the path the prepended).

Issue seems to be related to the category ID in the listings url. The only difference in the above three non SEF urls is the catid.
URL 1 - catid=0, URL 2 - catid=8, URL 3 - no cat id.

I am on the right track?

Thanks for your help in getting this to work. If you could review it once more and help me with the duplicate urls I would appreciate it.

Regards,

Keith

Thanks for your reply.

When Sobi SEF writes there urls they first exclude the catid

So
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=1&sobi2Id=3
=/250-black-acetal-rod

option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=0&sobi2Id=3
=/250-black-acetal-rod

option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&sobi2Id=3
=/250-black-acetal-rod

option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=8&sobi2Id=3
=/250-black-acetal-rod

(Note: Add Category to Entry URL set to no, Add All Categories to Entry URL set to no)

This is the same url just in different categories - not four different urls.

In Sobi2 if I add a listing to a child category it appears when you select the parent. Also it may also appear on the component page. This is the same listing not three different listings and many times it should be the same url.

To handle duplicate titles they have a setting "Add id to furl".

In that case the links above all would appear as

/250-black-acetal-rod_3

I am not crazy about that method and would prefer the ability to put the Sobi2 id in the path.
ie
/3/250-black-acetal-rod

Doesnt that look better?

With respect I would advise that the Sobi people designed their SEF plug in around how they intended their extension to work and how people use it.

If Artio was able to modify their extension to accomodate I would certainly be purchasing an update as I prefer the additional precision I get with joom SEF.


Regards,

Keith

I am having issues with the Sobi2 plug in on the latest version of Sobi2 - 2.9.1. (J 1.5.10)
I had purchased version 2.0 of the Joom SEF plug in some time ago.

My issue is that Joom SEF is creating multiple urls to the same listing.

/parent_cat/listing.htm
/parent_cat/child_cat/listing#2.htm
/listing#3.htm

If I change extension setting to not show any cats Joom SEF still creats three urls to the same listing in this example.


/listing.htm
/listing-2.htm
/listing-2.htm

add cat id = no
add contact idl=no
add cat to url no , last one , all it doesnt matter - still creates dups.
caching disabled for testing. Joomla caching disabled as well. URLS cleared at every opportunity.

I would ask Artio to revisit this extension based on the most recent Sobi2 version 2.9.1

I spent 2 hours on this the other day and could not get it to stop generating dups.

Sobi's SEF plug in worked great ( no dups) but I had a separate filtering issue with that.

Keith

I just wanted to thank you for the terrific job you did on the completing the Auction Factory 1.58 extension. It works great. Anyone using Auction Factory will love the way it writes the urls. Great turn around time and great response overall. If any wants to see how the URL look they can go to www.iplastic.com/auction

I am looking for a Joom SEF 3 extension for the component - Auction Factory 1.58 by The Factory. I am prepared to pay. Please let me know if anyone is interested.

Regards,

Keith