I think the title describes my requirements.
How do I deploy an AP outdoors for a cafe patio where wifi access will be free but the restaurant’s URL for the restaurant menu comes up on the patron’s browser as soon as they connect to this open guest network.
Hotspot is not good in 2014. Nobody wants to pay or login to get where the want to go! Am I right!
I have been blowing my mind for 4 days trying different ideas.
I am sure there is a simple solution 
Understand where your coming from but you appear to be confusing functionality with the user experience. You can setup a Hotspot using trial user where the username and password are passed in automatically and then directed to a URL. The customer connects to the wifi network and gets the menu page on thier browser. Just takes a little manipulation of the login.html page in hotspot.
Thanks. That gives me some hint as to where to go next. I was hoping not to implement the Hotspot because every time I try to enable ‘Hotspot’, I end up with a messed up firewall filter and nat filter that I did not expect to be ‘installed’ when I pressed ‘click’. And then I get disconnected in Winbox.
I think i never want to implement another Mikrotik RB with one ethernet port. It makes if so hard to save, reboot and then expect that you can login again. It is so easy to lock yourself out. I have had to factory reset 30 times in 3 days !
Well I have the hotspot working with trial mode which is a nice feature for allowing free usage.
But the goal is to get at external URL to load as soon as they click okay on the terms and conditions.
So, you walk into the restaurant, find the open wifi AP and try to surf somewhere. Then you get the Restuarant’s website before you can go any further.
But what mods are required to the “login.html” or other relevant HTML files ? This is where everything I have seen on the forum doesn’t quite work.
More help appreciated
Did you get this working ? What you had to do was edit the alogin.htm page, remove the redirect instruction and place the url for the menu instead. Alternatively you can use the advertise feature within the user profile to temporarily display a page. 
I will try that. Thanks.