[doc]: Instructions on how to display backend homepage (from CMS) as a homepage for Venia

[phtmgt]

Describe the request
Currently, there are no instructions on how to set the homepage to either a concrete CMS page from the backend or the designated (backend) homepage. This is very important for anyone not using EE and Page Builder.

Possible solutions
In order to use a CMS page as a home page you need to:

1. XXX
2. YYY
3. ...

Please let us know whether this is a new topic or a topic change request:

• New Topic Request (ie. missing entire topic/section)
• Topic Change Request (ie. spelling, organization)

[m2-assistant]

Hi @plamenh. Thank you for your report.
To help us process this issue please make sure that you provided sufficient information.

Please, add a comment to assign the issue: @magento I am working on this

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[sirugh]

@magento export issue to JIRA project PWA as Story

[github-jira-sync-bot]

✅ Jira issue (https://jira.corp.magento.com/browse/PWA-1490) is successfully created for this issue.

[sirugh]

@plamenh thank you for this request - I have created linked it to our internal backlog and we will get to it when we can :)

[phtmgt]

I found the source of the confusion (at least for me):

useCmsPage Line 62:

// TODO: we shouldn't be validating strings to determine if the page has content or not
    const hasContent = useMemo(() => {
        return (
            cmsPage &&
            cmsPage.content &&
            cmsPage.content.length > 0 &&
            !cmsPage.content.includes('CMS homepage content goes here.')
        );
    }, [cmsPage]);

I think this line should go. If it does not, we need this in the docs.

[sirugh]

Are you talking about the static text CMS homepage content goes here.? I believe that comes from the back end, which means that if you had customized your cms (and replaced that string) it would no longer be present, so your custom homepage would render.

[phtmgt]

Yeah, I understood that, but I don't get the reasoning behind it. Why not just display the homepage content there regardless of whether it's been changed from default or not? I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to display my homepage when all I had to do is change a text that is stored in the db. Does not make any sense. I mean, why would frontend logic depend on a string of text stored in the database?

[sirugh]

I mean, why would frontend logic depend on a string of text stored in the database?

@plamenh Apologies! I forgot to respond. ~17 months ago we made a change to this file in this PR: #1872. There was a comment which seems to have been lost: Only render <RichContent /> if the page isn't empty and doesn't contain the default CMS Page text.

So it appears that the original intent was literally to prevent the default CMS page text from rendering, but I don't know why we wanted to prevent it. I'm sorry it was confusing - I will see if we can remove that line.

[sirugh]

Ok I spoke to @davemacaulay who reminded me that the reason for this code is so we can render our venia-ui CategoryList component in the event users have not configured the default cms content. Basically, it is a fall back component rendered specifically in that case.

[phtmgt]

It's all good, just that comment is now missing, it would be great if it's back there. Someone might just skim through line 36 w/out investing much thought (as I did).

[sirugh]

https://github.com/magento/pwa-studio/pull/3062/files

done