How to define URL of Joomla sub-menus?

Question

How/Where is the URL of a Joomla article (used as submenu item) defined when using URL-shortening?

What I want to achieve is to have the article URLs to represent a submenu logic.

For example, the URL of the article "TiQuant" of the main menu item "Software" should be show as:

https://www.example.com/software/tiquant (this URL is not working)

and not as it is currently:

https://www.example.com/software?view=article&id=8:tiquant&catid=9:software

I am using "Modern" URL routing and I have enabled the removal of IDs (both for articles). The alias of the article is "tiquant". For the main menu items, URL shortening works perfectly as intended. The Joomla version is 3.10.xx (most recent).

Answer 1

I think you should enable Search Engine Friendly URLs in Joomla first. Go to System > Global Configuration. In the SEO Settings, enable the option Use URL Rewriting

AND:

Dont forget Rename htaccess.txt file to .htaccess in root folder

Answer 2

The secret is that a menu item (visible or invisible) must exist for each target URL (e.g. the article to be displayed as content of the submenu item). Then the aliases together with the menu hierarchy define the URL.

In our example, the menu item linked to the article needed the alias "tiquant" and be submenu item of the menu item "software" both generating the envisioned:

https://www.example.com/software/tiquant