Magento 2 - Making categories in Layered Navigation link, instead of filter

Question

I have a category with some subcategories:

- Lamps
-- Hanging lamps
-- Wall lamps
-- Floor lamps

When clicking on one of the three subcategories in the Layered Navigation, the product listing is filtered to the products of that specific category. I don't want it to filter, but I want the subcategories in the Layered Navigation to actually link to the category.

Is this a Magento 2 setting, or does this require custom changes? If so, can anybody help me get started? I've done some searching, but was only able to find a similar question for Magento 1.

Answer 1

You need to use a custom plugin class. Where you can change the core behavior of getUrl method in Magento\Catalog\Model\Layer\Filter\Item class. Because this getUrl method is responsible for generating all filter URLs.

app/code/Vendor/Module/etc/di.xml

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:ObjectManager/etc/config.xsd">
    <type name="Magento\Catalog\Model\Layer\Filter\Item">
        <plugin disabled="false" name="Vendor_Module_Plugin_Magento_Catalog_Model_Layer_Filter_Item" sortOrder="10" type="Vendor\Module\Plugin\Magento\Catalog\Model\Layer\Filter\Item"/>
    </type>
</config>

app/code/Vendor/Module/Plugin/Magento/Catalog/Model/Layer/Filter/Item.php

<?php
namespace Vendor\Module\Plugin\Magento\Catalog\Model\Layer\Filter;

class Item
{
    protected $categoryHelper;
    protected $categoryRepository;

    public function __construct(
        \Magento\Catalog\Helper\Category $categoryHelper,
        \Magento\Catalog\Model\CategoryRepository $categoryRepository
    ) {
        $this->categoryHelper = $categoryHelper;
        $this->categoryRepository = $categoryRepository;
    }

    public function afterGetUrl(
        \Magento\Catalog\Model\Layer\Filter\Item $subject,
        $result
    ) {
        // custom url for category filter
        if ($subject->getFilter()->getRequestVar() == 'cat') {
            $categoryId = $subject->getValue();
            $categoryObj = $this->categoryRepository->get($categoryId);
            return $this->categoryHelper->getCategoryUrl($categoryObj);
        }
        
        return $result;
    }
}

Here after plugin method (afterGetUrl) is used. Which runs after the main method (getUrl).

If you want to know more about plugin class. You can check here.