Custom URL Formats for Sitefinity Hierarchical Dynamic Modules

The following blog post is based on Slavo Ingilizov's blog post connected to custom URL formats for Sitefinity Content Modules. All hierarchical dynamic items in the Sitefinity CMS have URLs that are generated automatically from a given format. The default format includes the parent module item's name in the URL generated by hierarchical dynamic modules and item's title. The URL format of the hierarchical dynamic modules is configurable and this article explains how you can modify it.

The default structure of the hierarchical module items when one of them is opened in a browser is the following:

http://localhost:23740/test/parentitem/item

<---Page URL---><--Parent module item's URL--><--Item's URL name-->

Because there are two dynamic types in this case (Parent module and Child module), we can’t know if it specifies the URL of the parent module or the URL of the child module item. There is still a way to change the format in this case, but it involves some programming.

To remove the name of the parent module from the structure of the URL you need to create a custom provider and override a couple of methods. Please review the code below:

The newly created class should inherit from: Telerik.Sitefinity.DynamicModules.Data.OpenAccessDynamicModuleProvider.
You need to override the GetUrlFormat method, which actually returns the format string and use the logic above in order to remove the parent name from the URL. You could return a different value in the code above, for example a value from a custom field that you have created for your custom provider.

The code will work for all of your new items, which are created in the new custom provider.

To use your new provider, you need to register it in Sitefinity. To do this, follow these steps below:

1. Go to Administration –> Settings –> Advanced
2. In the TreeView, open DynamicModules –> Providers.
3. Click “Create New”
4. Specify a Name and Title for your custom provider.
5. For ProviderType, enter the full namespace and type of the custom class you previously created. 
6. Restart the application

To create a new item, go to your custom provider section in your dynamic module and click the Create new button.

Please make sure that the URL which does not have a parent name in the structure is unique.