Joomla 2.5 views - php vs html suffix

Question

I'm looking at a site under development (at my wife's work). It's being built with Joomla 2.5.x, and it's using a Kunena template for the forum.

Each page on the site uses a single URL with PHP variables, eg www.sitename.com/index?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=101 .

However, on the demo site , the suffix is always .html even though the content is CMS/database-generated.

What I want to know is:

1. Why does the site at my wife's work use .php?... ?
2. Where in the backend administration portal (to which I have access) are the settings for each view (presumably using a MVC framework)? Or are they only available by editing the PHP files directly?

Thanks.

Addendum

I found this documentation which helps explain #1. Still would like an answer to #2.

Answer 1

First, you should never edit a Joomla file directly. If there is ever somethign you can't do via a setting, override the file. Any changes you make in core files, besides potentially breaking things, will get overwritten on an update.

In terms of settings in general every view has an options button and you set default settings for the component there. There are then in general individual settings in items and menu items that override the defaults.

Kunena has more complex configuration and thus has its own complete UI.

Answer 2

Joomla has a setting for using either the raw url (which your site is using) or "Search engine friendly" (SEF) urls. The demo site not only uses SEF urls but also adds an html suffix to the end. The html really means nothing to the system and is just there. You could turn that off and the system would operate the same just without '.html'. (Locations would look like folders instead of files, I guess.)

If you access your administration system (www.sitename.com/administrator, most likely), you can go to Site->Global Configuration. Make sure you are on the "Site" tab and you should see SEO settings on the right side. These settings will change the urls between the demo's version and your own.

To use the mod_rewrite bit, you may have to convert an htaccess.txt file to .htaccess on the server: http://docs.joomla.org/How_do_you_convert_an_htaccess.txt_file_into_a_.htaccess_file%3F

To add a bit more, the demo site's url is ultimately converted back into the url that you see on your wife's work's site. The system operates based on option, view, id, and Itemid variables. The SEO settings convert this into search engine friendly phrases which I think help both search engines and people!