Houston, we have PERMALINKS

Thanks to a little encouragement from Corvus, I went ahead and screwed around with files that can permanently delete the internet in order to create pretty looking permalinks here.

After spending a good bit of time trying to figure out why WP couldn’t modify my .htaccess file (and why I couldn’t find it), I realized I didn’t have one yet. So I created it.

Then I read a little bit more in the Wordpress Codex on the Permalinks entry and realized that for certain servers getting permalinks to work was just living hell. I figured that mine was probably one of those.

But I kept digging through the page, and I found a little bit of hope in this:

For permalinks in general, you must use mod_rewrite, and IIS (common on Windows servers) does not support mod_rewrite. If you are using Apache 2.0.54, on Windows, mod_rewrite may work. If you put a filename at the beginning, WordPress will attempt to use that to pass the arguments and bypass the necessity for mod_rewrite.

/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
If you use this option, you can ignore the rewrite rules (that is, you can ignore .htaccess).

This option may not always work, especially in cases of WordPress running on IIS 6. To make this option work on IIS, add these 2 lines to a php.ini file and store that file in your webroot:
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1
cgi.force_redirect = 0

Now, if you know me at all you’ll know that I didn’t even bother to check what server software I’m running, if mod_rewrite was enabled, or anything. I fixated on: “that is, you can ignore .htaccess,” realizing this was probably my one hope.

Well, I created the dumb .ini file and you know what? It worked.

So if anyone else running Wordpress on CrystalTech is having fun with permalinks, I suggest you try that little cheat. It works like a charm.

Of course, it destroyed the link to my picture on the sidebar in any of the static pages, but that’s a problem for another day. I’m off to dinner.