I decided to post it here, but from what i saw on forums, it may not be seen as issue on TB. I'm a web developer and I'm working on Prestashop since late 1.3, I create and sell modules etc.
I really like idea of TB, because I'm against where Prestashop is going and was considering of forking 1.6 myself, after finding out about TB i felt relieved I don't have to.
After playing a little bit with TB I really like it, but there is one thing that is almost unacceptable for me. Meaning: Friendly urls in TB (I'm an enemy of all "remove id from link/url" modules).
If you ask why, then:
It does not improve SEO - I tested it... and alot of 1st places in google are with trashy links (like "/c/1" and "category-1" or "product/1" etc.)
It forces shop users to acually remember every product to have unique ID (TB does not even notify about duplicates when adding new product)
Cannonical Redirects stop working - Prestashop (didnt check code, but I belive it wasn't removed in TB) have built in cannonical redirects that automatically redirect product to new link (based on Product ID)
Causes problems - especially while importing stuff automatically - in PS it works, cause it does not matter what I put into friendly url link and if it duplicates, to make my wholesaler integrations work I would need to create random rubish ids in URL's that deny whole purpouse of those "friendly urls" in first place.
Can't imagine saying to client: Hey, TB is cool, but after every import of products remember to check "Duplicates" tab and fix duplicates by hand! GL HF!
Disallows merchant to edit friendly urls
or Requires him to write manual redirects
From what I saw in Friendly url configuration, ID requirement was removed and TB requires "rewrite*" instead of "id*"
I completly understand that some may want to enable those friendly urls, if they want to fix them "by hand" (yeah..right... especially after you import 10 000 products into shop)
But (by me) it SHOULD be an option to enable and merchant should be informed of risks and additional duties.
For example, while importing new products into shop I can think only about 2 ways:
Add option "Prefix/suffix product name with md5 hash or something (Only needed on thirtyBees, and your links will be even uglier than with ID)"
Add option to update product friendly url after saving product with generated product ID - "Dear Customer, our integration works slower in thirty bees, because we need to save each product twice!"
Ignore problem and tell customers "Hey, you have very specific friendly links in your system, please edit them on your own/redesign url system/switch back to prestashop/live with it"
Hope my essay will be heard and maybe it Will be considered in 1.0.9...
PS: Wonder, what will happend if I migrate from Prestashop with "/1-productlink" urls to TB "/productlink". Seems any client I would convience to move to TB will lose all urls (Tested, adding ID to url does not redirect).
As little as or as much as this... this "feature" (for me its a big flaw - can't say its a bug as it's intended... ) it's a dealbreaker. No matter how much I would want to move anyone to TB, It cannot ensure basic URL redirects.
Maybe I'm missing something... enlight me if it's not a huge flaw/step back in TB design
