Is there a way to force all links to be a page ID rather than the pretty format?

[Zach Zampetti]

Pretty names are fairly useless for external links since changing the name of a page breaks the link. Is there a way to force all pages to use ID so it is easier to copy and paste links? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

No, there's no way to do this easily.  You'd have to turn off the code that makes the "pretty" urls.

I tend to use the short links (in the page properties) which are also invariant.

[Bill Bailey]

Well won't the pretty URLs redirect (or at least point the user to the correct page)?

And yeah, tiny URLs is probably the easiest way to go.

[Zach Zampetti]

Thanks. The short links seem to work. I just wish there was an easier way of getting those links. Having to open each page and then wait while the link is generated is a bit slow. 

[Bill Bailey]

Maybe update the page layout to display that value? Then it would always be visible,

Docs are here customizing-site-and-space-layouts.

You will have to search on how to get the tinyURL.

[Bill Bailey]

Actually, this decorator file will give you some clues

link-to-this-page.vm

#* @vtlvariable name="globalSettings" type="com.atlassian.confluence.setup.settings.Settings" *#
#* @vtlvariable name="page" type="com.atlassian.confluence.pages.AbstractPage" *#
#if ($page && $action.tinyUrl)
<content tag="canonical">
##We want search engines to index the current version of the page, not the historical ones.
#if ($helper.isHistoricalVersion())
<link rel="canonical" href="$globalSettings.baseUrl$generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.getPageUrl($page.originalVersion))">
#else
<link rel="canonical" href="$globalSettings.baseUrl$generalUtil.htmlEncode($generalUtil.getPageUrl($page))">
#end
<link rel="shortlink" href="${globalSettings.baseUrl}/x/$action.tinyUrl">
<meta name="wikilink" content="$generalUtil.htmlEncode($page.linkWikiMarkup)">
<meta name="page-version" content="$page.version">
<meta name="ajs-page-version" content="$page.version">
</content>
#end