Remove canonifyURLs support

[bep]

See gohugoio/hugoDocs#469

This is also related to #4574 -- and we should make sure to do this and that in the same release.

We currently have a fair amount of (some of it slowish) code to support canonifyURLs, and there are several issues with it. Issues that are very hard to fix in a simple way. I don't use canonifyURLs, and I'm not willing to spend time fixing/maintaining it.

So until someone steps up to the plate with some magic, we are removing it.

/cc @spf13

[kaushalmodi]

Currently sites that have baseURLs with subdirs have to use canonifyURLs = true as a crutch to make links like ![](/images/gopher.png) work.

See this test page (best viewed in widescreen so that the nested frame can be seen side-by-side).

The said example image link works with canonifyURLs = true

The said example image link fails with canonifyURLs = false (default)

[bep]

@kaushalmodi #4457 should solve the Markdown part.

But why do you have to use canonifyURLs = true to get your example working? Note the boldness in my "have". There is an obvious workaround when you say that an URL in Markdown with a leading slash is relative to the host. You have a similar challenge with languages.

So, /subpath/images/gopher.png isn't very portable, but it works. And you can create yourelf a shortcode if you really want.

#4457 solves the Markdown part for both sub-paths and languages in a much cleaner and effective way.

So what you lose by this is the canonification of the URLs inside the templates. And that, my friend, is work for absURL.

(#4457 will only work for BF and possibly MMark).

[kaushalmodi]

So, /subpath/images/gopher.png isn't very portable

Exactly! I am aware of that workaround.. but portability is a big reason I am not going that route. Tomorrow if a site moves from subdir-domain to regular domain, the needed refactoring, while possible, is still an ugly job.

And you can create yourelf a shortcode if you really want.

I prefer to use regular Markdown links as much as possible.

#4457 solves the Markdown part for both sub-paths and languages in a much cleaner and effective way.

I'll subscribe to that issue (You obviously meant #4574 :)). I'll definitely try it out once you have a PR for that.

So what you lose by this is the canonification of the URLs inside the templates. And that, my friend, is work for absURL.

Yes, I am fine with that. The real-world usage is mainly linking to figures in content Markdown files, which look like the example I posted above.

[Jos512]

I use canonifyURLs on my websites to translate relative URLs to absolute ones. But I understand that this feature will be possible with #4574 too? In that case I don't care about removing canonifyURLs, since the same functionality that I currently use will be present in the future.

[XhstormR]

If i use markdown syntax for images, but we removed canonifyURLs support, What's the best alternative solution for the baseURL with sub directory?

yaml config:

baseURL: https://www.example.com/dir0/

content.md

![](/dir1/dir2/image.png)

output html:

// 404 error https://www.example.com/dir1/dir2/image.png
// should be https://www.example.com/dir0/dir1/dir2/image.png  
<img src="/dir1/dir2/image.png"> // 404 error 

Updated:
Right now I switch to markdown render hooks features https://gohugo.io/render-hooks/images/.

image render hooks:

<img src="{{ site.BaseURL }}{{ .Destination | safeURL }}"
  {{- with .Text }} alt="{{ . }}"{{ end -}}
  {{- with .Title }} title="{{ . }}"{{ end -}}
>

[jmooring]

You can enable Hugo's embedded link and image render hooks:

• https://gohugo.io/render-hooks/links/#default
• https://gohugo.io/render-hooks/images/#default

Note that these are enabled by default with multilingual single-host sites.

There is never a good reason to use {{ site.BaseURL }} in a template. At some point I hope we deprecate this method as well.

[ksgolding]

Would like to thank XhstormR for providing an actual solution to the problem! I have to admit, that how Hugo manages paths for images, well and apparently links is strangely fustrating and obtuse, especially for something that should really just work. I expect that the "static" folder is likely causing more problems then it solves.

Here is a subtly alternate to XhstormR solution, not using the apparently bad BaseURL

<img src='{{ urls.RelURL "" }}{{ .Destination | safeURL }}'
  {{- with .Text }} alt="{{ . }}"{{ end -}}
  {{- with .Title }} title="{{ . }}"{{ end -}}
>
{{- /* chomp trailing newline */ -}}

[jmooring]

@ksgolding

especially for something that should really just work

I've written about this many times, with a detailed description here. The short answer is to use link and image render hooks that resolve markdown destinations regardless of site configuration and front matter (e.g., slug and url) values.

The easiest way to handle this is to enable Hugo's embedded link and image render hooks:

• https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#renderhookslinkenabledefault
• https://gohugo.io/getting-started/configuration-markup/#renderhooksimageenabledefault

You can examine the source code here:

• https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/blob/master/tpl/tplimpl/embedded/templates/_default/_markup/render-link.html
• https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/blob/master/tpl/tplimpl/embedded/templates/_default/_markup/render-image.html