Redirect a Users Name (Link) to a User Homepage in Panels Using Rules

Question

How does one create the said Redirect a Users Name (Link) to a User Homepage in Panels Using Rules.

Here is my scenerio:

I have a Panels set which will show a subject posted content page in the left panel and the right panel will show a Dynamic list of users in a View, ultimately related to the subject page (ie by ZIP/Postcode, but thats for later).

I wish the View of usernames to then allow the reader to click the said users name (maybe pulled from Profile2 field name link) and take it to a Users (from the said Views) 'about' Homepage. I have pre-designed as a Content (custom) Node template page in the backend Structure for displaying the Users 'homepage'. (the said user will have priviledges to edit/amend via their DB, but that's for later). I'm thinking that this can be done via Views and presumed that a custom Rules Component needs to be created, but I'm stumbling at the next stage hurdle as to "what/where". I'm not sure if I would need to create a dedicated 'node' or whether it can simply be done via a View and if the Relationship elements come into for it to show dynamically to the end browsing user. Later, the Views will also incorporate Location map nodes (ala Google M), but for now I'm happy with an end result showing a static homepage which would have the normal 'about us' text, photo image, 'Contact Us' etc, ala the old Myspace type page.

I have viewed many of Johan Falks' tutorials at http://vimeo.com/nodeone but am still stumped about my approach or whether I'm missing a further module component?

I'm sure this is very basic stuff, but any clarificiation on this process for a learning novice is appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

So, you want to make the username link to a different page?

You can do that by overriding theme_username e.g, in template.php

You could also use hook_preprocess_username for the theme preprocess function and also change the entity_uri for the user entity, though the first option is probably simplest.

Answer 2

The answer for my issues here was in the said Views block I previously created. Using the field in question (in my case the User Name to link to a Users Public Profile page), I selected "Rewrite Results" then "Output this field as a link" and added the path and [name] ([name] == User: Name) in the replacement pattern. For example if the path to a Panel page was to be "soccer-player" then I entered /soccer-player/[name] this would result in website/soccer-player/sammy (if the user to be clicked was called Sammy and it's URL was shown on a page).

Easy now I come to think of it, but a previous tutorial would have worked wonders when I need it. I hope the above helps someone in future.