Dynamic URL Based on Relationships

Question

I have 3 channels and relationships between them Theme >> Goal >> Issue where multiple issues can be a part of a single goal and multiple goals make up an issue.

I am flexible with which direction the relationships go (IE can have a single relationship from Goal to Theme or a multiple relationship to select multiple goals from the theme.

What I am looking for is a URL structure like example.com/red-theme/pretty-goal/balloons where red-theme is an entry in the Themes channel, pretty-goal is an entry in the Goals channel, and balloons is an entry in the issues channel.

I have a template group for issue with a template route: /{theme:alpha_dash}/{goal:alpha_dash}/{issue:alpha_dash}/

If I go to http://example.com/red-theme/pretty-goal/balloons I can successfully use channel:entries to get the balloons entry with {segment:issue}

{exp:channel:entries channel="issues" url_title="{segment:issue}" dynamic="no" limit="1" require_entry="yes"}

However - the problem I face - is that http://example.com/foo/bar/balloons also takes me to that page.

My Questions: 1) Am I going about this the right way or is there a better way to dynamically create urls? 2) If so, then how can I do a check for the proper relationship url_title from the url segments to either redirect or throw a 404?

PS brand new to EE and appreciate any help/guidance.

Answer 1

To answer this you need to think about what you want to have happen when EE sees a URL - only with this clear can you work out what the right approach would be.

So with your example, it sounds like foo/bar/balloons and red/pretty/balloons should be resulting in different pages - but to know how we need to know how they differ: are they different pages, or similar pages with some content different? Likewise, how would the pages created in response to red/squeaky/balloons be different from /red/pretty/balloons?

EE template language lets you respond to a URL in a very flexible way. You don't have to generate the content of a template based on the URL at all if you don't want to - you can put in conditionals that look at the URL segments and make choices about what content to include within a template.

So if you stick with the route that sends all your entries to the same template - just put in some logic at the start of the template that will parse the URL and include content as required. For example:

{if segment_2 == "pretty"} ... do something ... {if:elseif segment_2 == "squeaky"} ... do something else ... {if:else} ... a default response{/if}

You can put the actions arising from the logic in the template, or if you prefer build the output from several templates and use logic to decide which components you pull in where / when.

If you can give more info about what you are actually trying to do within the template / with the output, maybe it will be easier to make suggestions of a good approach.

HTH

+++ Modified to add information about Parents of Parents +++

You can work out segment_1 and segment_2 in your example using the parents feature of the relationships field. Something like:

{exp:channel:entries channel="issues"  url_title="{segment_3}"}
  {parents field="relationship_to_issues"} {!-- this should be the name of the relationship field in the parent channel entry --}
   <p>Segment 2 name is {parents:channel_short_name}</p>
      {parents:parents channel="channel_with_themes_in" field="relationship_to_goals"}
   <p>Segment 1 name is {parents:parents:channel_short_name}</p>
      {/parents:parents}
  {/parents}
{/exp:channel:entries}

What you do with this information when you get it is up to you - but for example you could use it to redirect the page to the 'correct' URL - put this in the middle of the parents:parents tag:

{redirect='{parents:parents:channel_short_name}/{parents:channel_short_name}/{segment_3}' status_code="301"}