I was thinking about installing the new Short URLs hack, but I have to ask, excatly how this hack works and will it retroactively change existing URLs to the new short form, or will it only work going forward? I have too many folks linking to our various articles, that I don't want to change those URLs, thus having "dead" links.

With this hack, does it simply shorten the URLs or will it give the URLs "real names, paths?" I.E. http://www.eclipsemagazine.com/news/reviews?

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The shortURL hack is meant to be search engine friendly. Reynaldo has done an excellent job.

The shortURL hack actually lengths your URL. In your case, I think the original URL should still work.

I was planning to use it, and I decided not to for one reason - future linking to the site. The hack will make referring links complicated once it's implemented.

Malexandria:

As TL said, ShortURLs actually expand the url
It used to make urls shorter when it was first released (from version 0.1 to 0.3) but a few changes were necessary to make the hack "dynamically" compatible with all modules.

Right now it is compatible with almost every module. However, some templates do not follow HTML standards and some modules do not follow XOOPS modules programming guidelines and the hack ocassionally may break an image.

It have been tested with all the modules supplied originally with XOOPS 2.06

What it does is to convert URLs like:
https://xoops.org/modules/newbb/reply.php?forum=15&post_id=87388&topic_id=20216&viewmode=flat&order=
(not indexable by all Search Engines)

into:
https://xoops.org/m-newbb+reply+forum-15-post_id-87388-topic_id-20216-viewmode-flat-order-.html
(fully indexable by every search engine)

This change is completely reversible and the original URLs continue working, so you won't end up with a lot of dead URLS.

Also, you can turn the hack on/off by simply removing a line from mainfile.php

You can see it working at my test site at: http://www.wtmmail.com