settings disappear after upgrade (confused users, bad link from node edit form)

look at: #252767: document the fact that the settings page moved

Yes, thanks jwcdyntek for the bug report and dvinegla for marking it as a duplicate.

I believe a lot of people are going to be caught by this so I'm thinking that perhaps I should create a helper which will redirect people from admin/settings/pathauto to the new location with a drupal_set_message to notify them of the change...

Any other ideas how we could help people with this transition?

That settings page was linked in other places, so that needs to be fixed.

Well, I changed the link on the node edit form so I'm marking this fixed. If anyone has ideas on other ways to help users I am all ears.

I was flummoxed, but eventually found my way to the pathauto settings (only via google and this issue). I figure there must be a way to fix it, to shorten the journey for users.

I'd recommend adding a link which points to /admin/build/path/pathauto
under "Pathauto" in the Admin -> by Module. Like, so:

Pathauto

Provides a mechanism for modules to automatically generate aliases for the content they manage.

* Manage automatic aliases
* Configure permissions
* Get help

How I came to this conclusion: When I first installed the module, I looked for "Pathauto settings" under the Site Configuration menu. Then I looked in the Site building menu. No joy. I was looking for something that said "pathauto".

Next, in admin menu, i did a find-in-page for "pathauto" and found nothing. Though I did see: "URL aliases. Change your site's URL paths by aliasing them."
That link brought me to /admin/build/path, "URL aliases" - which I assumed was from the default path module, so I willfully ignored anything else listed.

I did not notice "Automated alias settings", as there was no reference to my keyword I was looking for (pathauto)

In Admin -> By module, under the "Pathauto" options we see only
* Configure permissions
* Get help

.. not one of these links to the management page. Little did I know, the parent of the page I was looking for was located under "Path".

I think adding a link under Pathauto settings to "Manage automatic aliases" would introduce the terminology, and provide a much-needed link in-context.

Instead of finding my link, I assumed there must be some freaky bug so I went to Google, and found this issue. I suppose you thought of this solution, but just thought I'd give my two cents.

Thanks for a great module tho!

Are you a new user to Pathauto or did you use it previously?

In general, I believe that the new location for the admin settings is improved. All things about url aliases are now together. This will also hopefully help people to understand that Pathauto is an automater on top of the url alias system. Really, site admins shouldn't be looking for the word "pathauto". That is techno-babble that doesn't mean anything. The only person who knows what "Pathauto" is are people who downloaded the module - which is not every admin of a site.

In the short term, users who upgrade from previous versions will have this problem. So, what can we do to help them?

1. The INSTALL.txt includes the path to the settings.
2. The 5.x to 6.x upgrade guid (linked from the project page) also notes this change
3. It's documented on the handbook page

Back to original status...