Dspace 10 allows to set a custom user defined URL to refer at a given Entity (Person, Publication, etc.) replacing the standard one in use in the system.

This URL is set in a submission form panel, custom-url , that can be placed in different submission definitions, in order to define who and when is able to define this URL (Submitter during submission, an user allowed to edit the Entity, just the administrators when editing an Entity, etc.).

Custom URL is then used to refer to DSpace entity where it has been set.  Custom URL can be changed, previously existing value(s) can be kept or deleted. When kept, previously defined URLs will continue to redirect to the Entity.  In this case, if /custom-url is called, browser will redirect to whereas, if /custom-url is deleted each http(s) call toward this URL will result in a 404.

Submission Configuration Example

Configuration in item-submission.xml

        <submission-process name="Person">
            <step id="collection"/>
            <step id="personStep"/>
            <step id="custom-url"/>
            <step id="upload"/>
            <step id="license"/>
        </submission-process>

UI outcome

During the submission workflow, a dedicated submission step allows the user to choose or edit the Custom URL.

Once published, the Person item page is accessible using a URL that includes the custom segment.

Custom URL auto generation

It is possible to define, for one or many entities, an auto-generation of the custom url, created starting from configurable metadata of the chosen Entity.

Supported Entity Types

The following property defines which entity types are eligible for automatic custom URL generation:

dspace.custom-url.consumer.supported-entities = EntityType1,EntityType2

Only items whose entity type label exactly matches one of the values listed in this property will be processed by the CustomUrlConsumer.

Metadata Mapping

For each entity type listed in dspace.custom-url.consumer.supported-entities, a corresponding metadata mapping must be defined.
This mapping specifies which metadata fields are used to generate the custom URL.

The CustomUrlConsumer concatenates the values of the configured metadata fields in the order listed.

Property format

dspace.custom-url.consumer.entity-metadata-mapping.{EntityType} = field1,field2,...,fieldN

Supported metadata field formats

• Two-part format: schema.element
  Example: dc.title
• Three-part format: schema.element.qualifier
  Example: dc.contributor.author

Important notes

• If an entity type is listed in supported-entities but no metadata mapping is defined for it, no custom URL will be generated for that entity
• Both the supported entity list and the metadata mapping must be correctly configured for custom URL generation to work

Examples

Single metadata field:

dspace.custom-url.consumer.entity-metadata-mapping.Publication = dc.title

Multiple metadata fields (concatenated):

dspace.custom-url.consumer.entity-metadata-mapping.Publication = dc.title,dc.contributor.author

Person entity using structured metadata:

dspace.custom-url.consumer.entity-metadata-mapping.Person = person.familyName,person.givenName

Complete Example Configuration

dspace.custom-url.consumer.supported-entities = Person, Publication, OrgUnit
dspace.custom-url.consumer.entity-metadata-mapping.Person = person.familyName,person.givenName
dspace.custom-url.consumer.entity-metadata-mapping.Publication = dc.title
dspace.custom-url.consumer.entity-metadata-mapping.OrgUnit = dc.title

Event Consumer Configuration

The CustomUrlConsumer is registered as an event consumer and reacts to item lifecycle events:

event.consumer.customurl.class = org.dspace.app.customurl.consumer.CustomUrlConsumer
event.consumer.customurl.filters = Item+Install|Modify|Modify_Metadata

This means custom URLs are generated or updated when:

• An item is installed
• An item is modified
• Item metadata is modified

Custom URL Handling During Item Versioning

When an item is versioned in DSpace, the custom URL behaves as follows:

1.  The new version inherits the custom URL
   • When a new version of an item is created, it automatically receives the same custom URL as the original item
2. The original item's URL is preserved in legacy field
   • The original item's custom URL is moved to the dspace.customurl.old metadata field
   • This preserves the history but removes the URL from the current version
   • The original item can no longer be found by its custom URL
3. URL lookups always return the latest version
   • Searching by custom URL will always resolve to the most recent version of the item
   • Users are redirected to the latest version automatically