Dynamic urls (aliases) based on variable

Question

I have a component with multiple retailers, based on data from an API.

Each retailer has a "read more" link.

Now, what I need, is to give each retailer it's own alias, without having to add an alias / menu item for each retailer in the backend.

So if I click on a specific "read more" link, the normal (non-sef) url is something like:

https://www.mysite.com?index.php&option=com_wherecanisave&retailerID=1

Now in the target page, I do a call to the API again, and look up the retailer's name. Then I want the url to look something like this:

http://www.mysite.com/joes-car-wash

How cab I achieve this without having to add aliases to the backend or database?

Answer 1

There are at least 2 ways to do it and each one requires an experienced programmer:

Creating custom router

If you are using a custom component you can extend the Router and set this component view as a homepage (that way its component router will became a default router for the website). Here you can find a proper explanation how to do it the right way.

https://docs.joomla.org/Supporting_SEF_URLs_in_your_component

Creating custom System plugin

You can also try to create a proper System plugin and hook into onAfterInitialise and work on redirections or maybe the Application router.