Magento 2 - CMS Block redirection to url

Question

I would like to be able to redirect to a url when the user clicks the category.

I have this menu, with the News category. This category loads a CMS Block:

And only having a script which redirects me to an url:

<script type="application/javascript">
window.location.href = "http://web/blog/news/";
</script>

I have also used:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; URL='http://web/blog/news/'" />

Basically it redirects fine, but in between it loads the CMS Block, which has the javascript:

And after it does properly redirect to the wanted url.

The issue here is that it shows the CMS Block in between, can I avoid that somehow? Or is there a better way to do it?

The main point here is to be able to create a categories link to this webpage, and so far, creating a block and adding it to the category is what I have comed up to. If necessary I can open de code and do it programatically, but it's not what I'm seeking for due to the clients would like to add more and they are not developers.

Answer 1

You don't have to build an extension for this. You can do the following:

1. Create new category in Products -> Categories and set a meta title inside Search Engine Optimization, for example: "News".
2. Go to Marketing -> SEO and sales -> URL Rewrite and change the target path to the desired one. For example: "blog/news". NOTE: If your not allowed to change the target path, delete them and create it again with the correct target path or change it on Database, inside url_rewrite table.

After that, reindex.

Answer 2

For this requirement, you have to build an extension

• which extension will create a category an Attribute and where your clients add respect cms page URL. How to create a category attribute follow Magento devdoc.
• Then using catalog_controller_category_init_after event, you will direct to that custom attribute field value

File: Namespace/Module/Setup/InstallData.php

<?php
namespace {Namespace}\{Module}\Setup;\Setup;
use Magento\Eav\Setup\EavSetup;
use Magento\Eav\Setup\EavSetupFactory;

class InstallData  implements \Magento\Framework\Setup\InstallDataInterface{

   protected $eavSetupFactory;
   public function __construct(EavSetupFactory $eavSetupFactory) {
        $this->eavSetupFactory = $eavSetupFactory;
    }
    public function install(\Magento\Framework\Setup\ModuleDataSetupInterface $setup, 
            \Magento\Framework\Setup\ModuleContextInterface $context) {

        $eavSetup = $this->eavSetupFactory->create(['setup' => $setup]);
        $eavSetup->addAttribute(\Magento\Catalog\Model\Category::ENTITY, 'cms_url', [
            'type'     => 'varchar',
            'label'    => 'Your Category Attribute Name',
            'input'    => 'text',
            'visible'  => true,
            'required' => false,
            'global' => \Magento\Eav\Model\Entity\Attribute\ScopedAttributeInterface::SCOPE_STORE,
            'group'    => 'General Information',
        ]);
    }


}

Observer Class

<?php

namespace {Namespace}\{Module}\Observer;

class CategoryinitafterRedirection implements \Magento\Framework\Event\ObserverInterface {

    /**
     * @var \Magento\Framework\App\ActionFlag
     */
    protected $actionFlag;

    /**
     * @var \Magento\Framework\App\Response\RedirectInterface
     */
    protected $redirect;

    public function __construct(
        \Magento\Framework\App\ActionFlag $actionFlag,
        \Magento\Framework\App\Response\RedirectInterface $redirect           
    )
    {
        $this->redirect = $redirect;
        $this->actionFlag = $actionFlag;
    }
    public function execute(\Magento\Framework\Event\Observer $observer): void {
        $category = $observer->getEvent()->getCategory();
        $controller_action = $observer->getEvent()->getData('controller_action');
        if ($category && $category->getCmsUrl()) {
            if($category->getCmsUrl() != null){
                $this->actionFlag->set('', \Magento\Framework\App\Action\Action::FLAG_NO_DISPATCH, true);
                $this->redirect->redirect($controller_action->getResponse(), $category->getCmsUrl());               
            }
        }

}

}

}

Namespace/Module/view/adminhtml/ui_component/category_form.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<form xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:module:Magento_Ui:etc/ui_configuration.xsd">
    <fieldset name="display_settings">
        <field name="cms_url">
            <argument name="data" xsi:type="array">
                <item name="config" xsi:type="array">
                    <item name="dataType" xsi:type="string">string</item>
                    <item name="formElement" xsi:type="string">input</item>
                    <item name="label" xsi:type="string" translate="true">CMS URL</item>
                </item>
            </argument>
        </field>
    </fieldset>
</form>