Removing index.php Support: Does it matter?

As part of the EE 2.2 release, EllisLab updated their documentation to include instructions on removing index.php from the URL. This is significant because up to this point EllisLab never “officially supported” the widely-used (including on their own sites) technique of using mod_rewrite rules in an .htaccess file to remove the index.php file from the site URL.

The support is only “limited” and this most likely means that while they want you to know how to remove the index.php from your site URL, they can’t (and rightly so) help support every server configuration, host and web stack out there. That would be tough to manage.

There have been two reactions to this news.

Great news!

Excitement abound on Twitter that EllisLab finally support removing index.php. People are happy to see EllisLab embrace what everyone has already been doing. Finally, they approve!

Who cares?!

EllisLab is now acknowledging in their documentation something that they and everyone else building sites with ExpressionEngine have been doing for years. “Welcome to 7 years ago!” some might say.

And I agree, it does seem a little late to the party. 

But there’s more…

As an experienced EE user and developer, no matter your reaction, this isn’t about you (or me).

What is exciting to me is that people new to ExpressionEngine can learn how to do this right from the official documentation. No longer do they have to look to the wiki (if they can even find the page) and then be concerned if it’s even safe. All of that is gone. It’s one small step toward making installing and setting up ExpressionEngine even easier. That’s something we can all support and celebrate.