WordPress ships with a special file
which allows you to customise your urls.
If you've already set this up before
you will have done this from the
Settings->Permalinks
and then set the url structure
to one of the options below.
If all this worked fine
then you can happily proceed
with the htaccess maker part
of AdminTools.
You will find the htaccess maker
in the security section.
Remember if you've already been able
to create without any modification
the htaccess file then you can
happily proceed with this section.
However, you should know
that any changes made here have the
possibility of completely blocking
your entire web site
so before you proceed you should make
sure that you have FTP or some other
hosting control panel file manager
access to get your site
back online. Just in case
something goes wrong.
If, when you used WordPress
own htaccess file you had to
make some edits for it to work on your
web host you will find those
right down at the bottom of this file.
The most likely ones that you changed
were to set the follow symlinks
to yes and the base directory
of your site from slash
to some subdirectory.
If you were able to make
WordPress own htaccess file
work without any changes
you can simply leave these as the default.
If we scroll back to the top
we can see this htaccess maker
includes various options
to enhance the basic security
of your web site.
Each one of these is documented
in the AdminTools documentation
section of the akeebabackup.com
web site.
Remember, defaults are there for
a very good reason and if you don't
know what something is then you should leave it alone.
In addition to some web ste security
there is also somme addtional server
protection that is provided.
Some plugins may work in a non-standard
way and you will have to provide
exceptions to allow direct access
to their files.
In addition we have the opportunity
to create some cusyom htaccess rules.
If you don't know what these are
don't worry about it,
it doesn't apply to you.
But if you've had to create some already
then this is where you will add them.
If you had previously added some
code to change your php version
for example, you should copy that code here.
Otherwise your host may default to a very
old version of php.
The final section
Optimisation and Utility
adds some addtional tweaks to your web site
and you shouldn't need to change these.
When yoou are happy with the settings
click on the Save and Create htaccess button.
Your new htaccess file has been written
to the disk and a backup
of the old one has been taken.
At this point you must check to make
sure that every part of your web site
is working as it did before.
It should, but as menitoned before
it may be necessary to add some
edxceptions for some of your plugins.
If for some reason your web site is now
completely blank for you
and you haave a 500 error
you should use your ftp program
or your web hosts file manager
to locate the .htaccess
file in the root of your web space.
Rename this file.
Perhaps to .htaccess.new
to prevent it from working
and your web site will reload.
You should then return to AdminTools
and the htaccess maker and review
the settings until your web site
is working perfectly.