Use sh404SEF router from a plugin - joomla

Question

I'm developing a Joomla 2.5 content plugin that need to programatically create a SEF url when an article is saved.
I've managed to make this work when the regular Joomla SEF is activated. My plugin is using the regular Joomla JRoute::_(); to build a SEF URL. This works great with native Joomla.
For example the url
http://localhost/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=123
is translated to
http://localhost/index.php/mycategory/article-title-123.html
My code looks like this:
private function joomlaSefUrl($article){
require_once(JPATH_SITE.DS.'components'.DS.'com_content'.DS.'helpers'.DS.'route.php');
$siteURL = substr(JURI::root(), 0, -1);
if(JPATH_BASE == JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR) {
// In the back end we need to set the application to the site app instead
JFactory::$application = JApplication::getInstance('site');
}
$articleRoute = JRoute::_( ContentHelperRoute::getArticleRoute($article->id, $article->catid) );
$sefURI = str_replace(JURI::base(true), '', $articleRoute);
if(JPATH_BASE == JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR) {
$siteURL = str_replace($siteURL.DS.'administrator', '', $siteURL);
JFactory::$application = JApplication::getInstance('administrator');
}
$sefURL = $siteURL.$sefURI;
return $sefURL;
}
The problem is that when third party extensions like sh404SEF is installed the SEF URL that I get from using the JRoute::_() method is still the the regular Joomla route url:
http://localhost/index.php/mycategory/article-123.html
instead of the expected sh404SEF's url
http://localhost/Mycategory/article-title.html
Joomla doesn't see that the sh404SEF is installed, so by using the JRoute::(), I allways get the regular SEF Joomla url. So I need to find a way to use the sh404SEF JRoute::() class directly from within my plugin, instead of the regular Joomla router class.
Does anyone know how the sh404SEF classes work?

Answer 1

With Joomla! to get rid of the index.php section of the URL you need to turn on mod_rewrite in you global preferences and enable the .htaccess file that comes with the basic install. (When you first install Joomla! it's called htaccess.txt duplicate and rename the copy to .htaccess
For more complete information read this on Joomla Docs about SEF URLs.
You could try looking at the source of the sh404SEF plugins on JED

Answer 2

Use function getSefFromNonSef in file
administrator\components\com_sh404sef\helpers\general.php
Example:
$url = 'index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1:aaaaaaaaa&catid=2&Itemid=101'
$sef_url = Sh404sefHelperGeneral::getSefFromNonSef($url, true, false, null);
Remember, non-sef url, starting with index.php?...