Hello, I just found out that one of my editors that had created a custom page in OJS 3 with the slug /submissions, which broke the workflow by redirecting clicks on the Submissions button in the back end to the new custom page on the front end. This was a difficult problem to diagnose though easy to fix.
It would be really great if OJS prevented this from happening in the first place by preventing users from assigning URL paths for new pages that duplicate the existing paths for system functions.
Hi @tmrozewski,
That was actually an intentional feature 
We wanted to permit users to override built-in areas like the About pages, in order to give them flexibility when the built-in format didn’t suit their needs. Unfortunately, as you’ve found, it’s also a way to shoot yourself in the foot.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
Interesting, thanks. May I amend the feature request to suggest that users receive a non-binding warning if they page URL they’ve suggested would create a conflict?
The situation I’m in is that I administer an install of OJS on behalf of a university library for a whole flock of journals with varying levels of technical facility on their editorial boards. In a case like this, an editor with just enough technical expertise to get themselves in trouble decided to go ahead and create the page without realizing that the existing warning text (which says something like, “you might cause a conflict with system pages if you pick the wrong URL”) applied exactly to the URL they had just chosen for a page.
Anyway, not a critical issue, just wanted to log it.
(BTW, I would love to be able to contribute code but I just don’t have the chops).
Hi @tmrozewski,
That’s probably not a totally uncommon situation, though it’s the first time I’ve heard of a built-in URL getting overridden accidentally. I’d suggest filing an issue entry for a feature request in github: https://github.com/pkp/pkp-lib/issues/new/choose
Thanks,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
Thanks again, Alec.
What’s the difference between submitting feature requests to this category in PKP Forums and to GitHub?
Hi @tmrozewski,
The forum here is more a place for discussion and community engagement; the github issues area is where the soup gets made and is often a lot more technical. Items often start here and get migrated over there once they’re specified in a detailed enough way for a developer to start working on them.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
Great, thanks again Alec.