How feasible (or desirable) would it be to add titles to URLs?

About This Message Board
1

I often browse the Dope by opening multiple tabs, then working through them. Sometimes those tabs don’t start at the beginning of threads, as I’ve opened them by recent or last post. By the time I get to the tab, I’ve forgotten what the thread is and have to go to the top of the page to see which one I’m in. Obviously this is a very minor annoyance, but if it’s easy to code in a bot to attach a title to the URL, I feel like most people would appreciate it. But maybe it’s just me.

As an example, reddit does this with its URLs. Here’s a random link I just pulled off the front page there: Reddit - Dive into anything

Everything after the 1c331h has no effect on where the URL directs. You could have the link be Reddit - Dive into anything and it still takes you to the same place. However, as I’m pretty unaware of all things relating to coding, I have no idea how difficult or time-consuming this change would be.

Thoughts?

ETA: I notice the links have been shortened. If you don’t want to bother hovering or clicking the links, it basically has the URL info saying reddit.com/comments/importantpart/unimportant part, where the /unimportant part can be anything at all and it will still go to the same page.

2

I dunno about the technical issue of adding stuff to the end of a URL, but I do know that it’s possible (with a li’l effort) to provide a descriptive link. For details, see: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9034109#post9034109 or (same link) How to post pictures and links in the thread about Rules, Regulations, and Technical Issues

3

They are called ‘pretty’ urls or permalinks.

A quick look shows there is an extension ( these are called mods, for modifications in vBull, which kinda annoys me since forum monitors are mods as well ) for vBulletin, which would be trivial to implement. However this is the sort of thing that should only be done if the owner wants it done.

Link to vBulletin.ORG
However, hovering the cursor above the tab on Firefox shows the title in a floating box anyway.

4

:confused: I am confused. Are we talking about showing the thread title on the tab? It already does that for me. That tells me what the thread is. What URLs are you talking about?

5

I guess this would work for me if I didn’t have a million tabs open at once, so all of my tabs are about a centimeter across. But what I’m talking about isn’t the tab title (which isn’t the URL), but what’s listed in the address bar. For this thread, it’s this: How feasible (or desirable) would it be to add titles to URLs? - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board. With an attached title, it could be this, for example: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=687800/How_feasible_(or_desirable)_would

However, I’d forgotten that you can hover over the tab (which incidentally also works in Chrome) as Claverhouse suggests.

So I guess this is pretty much a non-issue, which it really was in the first place. I was just idly thinking about it as I opened the dope this morning.

ETA: As I’ve just discovered, the 2nd URL I listed works. So the dope already has the capability to do this, it would just need a bot to attach the first few words of the title to the URL. But like I said, not that big a deal.

6

It sounds like this is really solved on the individual browser level and need not be a hack added into the existing vB system.

Which is really how management has always preferred to roll here – any modification not hard coded into the program has to be manually added back in/reconfigured after any upgrade or reinstall . And some hacks, even the best intentioned ones, can destabilize the system, so mostly we prefer not to do them.

7

I understand not wanting to make mods to the board, but I’m confused as to how this would be an individual browser thing in general. Surely the way URLs are rendered isn’t individual? Unless you just meant that it’s not worth dealing with, in which case I can understand why it wouldn’t be worth it.