@composi/router

@composi/router is a client-side hash-based router for single page apps (SPA). This is for those occasions where you want to be able to conditionally render a set of sub components based on a url value. This is works properly with the browser's back button and you can use it with the History API. @composi/router is very simple with only a few options. If you need a more advanced router, check out Universal Router. Or use whatever router you prefer.

Installation

npm i -D @composi/router

Import and Use

Import Router into your app.js file:

import { h, render } from '@composi/core'
import { Router } from '@composi/router'

To create routes you need to instatiate Router and provide it with a series of path objects separated by commas. The path object is an object literal with a path and action value.

Adding Routes

The following example shows how to set up routes. What you do when the route happens is completely up to you:

import { h, render } from '@composi/core'
import { Router } from '@composi/router'

// Create instance of Router:
const router = new Router()

// Define paths to use:
router(
  {
    path: "/",
    action: () => {
      // Do something when main page loads
    }
  },
  {
    path: "/about",
    action: () => {
      // load an "About" widget
    }
  },
  {
    // Capture a parameter id:
    path: "/users/:name",
    action: (name) => {
      if (name === 'joe') alert('Hi, Joe!')
      else console.log(name)
    }
  }
)

Normally you would use a route to handle loading a component. The easiest way to do this is to use a functional component:

import { h, render } from '@composi/core'
import { Router } from '@composi/router'

const router = new Router()

const Home = <h1>This is Home</h1>
const FirstPage = <h1>Welcome to the First Page!</h1>
const SecondPage = <h1>Second Page Here.</h1>

function Menu(props, child) {
  return (
    <div>
      <ul class='menu'>
        <li><a href="#/">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="#/first">First Page</a></li>
        <li><a href="#/second">Second Page</a></li>
      </ul>
      {
        child
      }
    </div>
  )
}

function renderPage(component) {
  render(<Menu>{component}</Menu>, 'section')
}

router(
  {
    path: '/',
    action: () => renderPage(Home)
  },
  {
    path: '/first',
    action: () => renderPage(FirstPage)
  },
  {
    path: '/second',
    action: () => renderPage(SecondPage)
  },
  {
    path: '/*',
    action: () => {
      console.log('Sorry, not a proper path.')
    }
  }
)


render(<Menu>{Home}</Menu>, 'section')

You could also use routes in conjuction with @composi/datastore. The route would set a value on the dataStore, which would cause the component to update.

Multiple Handlers for One Route

You can use more than one handler for a route. You might do this because you need to remove some functionality later. If that's the case, you want to use named handlers for any handler you will want to remove:

// Handler to delete later:
const removableHandler = () => {
  console.log('This handler is temporary and subject to removal.')
}
router(
  {
    path: '/',
    action: () => console.log('You are home!')
  },
  {
    path: '/',
    action: () => console.log('This is another handler on the Home path.')
  }
)

To learn more about removing paths and handlers, see Removing a Route

Optional Parameters

You can indicate that a parameter is optional by using the ? character after it:

router({
  path: 'users/:name?',
  action: function(name) {
    if (name) {
      console.log(name)
    } else {
      console.log('No name was provided.')
    }
  }
})
router.navigate('users/') // logs `No name was provided.`
router.navigate('users/bob') // logs `'bob'`

Wildcard

Using * will catch any routes that do not match previously defined routes. Use this as a catch all for any unexpected routes or for a 404:

router({
  path: 'users/*',
  action: function() {
    console.log('Caught unexpected route!')
  }
})
router.navigate('users/12312312')

Block a Route

You can block a route by returning false:

router({
  path: '/admin',
  action: function() {
    return false
  }
})

Remove All Routes and Handlers

If you want to remove all current routes and handlers, you can invokde the following:

router.removeAll()

After running that none of the paths will work.

Removing a Route

You can remove a singular route as follows:

// Handler to delete later:
const removableHandler = () => {
  console.log('This handler is temporary and subject to removal.')
}
router(
  {
    path: '/',
    action: () => console.log('You are home!')
  },
  {
    path: '/',
    action: () => removableHandler
  }
)

// Sometime later we remove the named handler:
router.remove('/', removableHandler)