3.8. Renaming things

There are generally two ways you can rename an item: from the contents view or by using the [actions] menu's rename option. This section will show you how, and give you a few tips and techniques to create more publishable and accessible URLs.

When you create something in UofL's Plone CMS, the URL or short name is automatically generated, based on the Title. If your Title is really long, the URL that is automatically created will be, too. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as search engines pay attention to your URLs. Having a descriptive URL can actually give you higher google ratings. However, there are times when you'll want your URLs to be brief, particularly for folders or documents that you want to link to easily. This is when you'll want to know how to use Plone's various renaming options.

Renaming items from the contents view

You can rename one or more items at a time from the [contents] tab. First, select the item or items you want to rename by clicking on the checkboxes next to the title of the item(s). Then, click on the rename button.

 
Now you will see a "Rename Item" screen. In this instance, we are only renaming one item. TIP: You can also rename and re-Title a number of files and folders all at once! 

Since we want a shorter URL part of the filename, simply change what's in the "New Short Name" field to something more brief - in this case, we'll rename the URL part from 'massive-science-experiment-from-mars.html' to simply, 'experiments.html' as shown in the following figure:

Simply click on the rename all button, and your page has a new URL!

Renaming An Item From the Action Menu

If you're already on a page or folder, you can easily get to the Rename Item screen by clicking-on the [actions] drop-down and selecting the 'rename' option:

screen in the previous example. Simply update your URL and click on the Save All button when you are done.

Now that you can rename things, you can set the URL to whatever you need it to be. This is particularly helpful when you create information pages or departmental sites, and want your URLs to be easy to read and type!

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