plastiq-router

• incredibly simple
• works with History API or Hashes
• generate links from routes
• route parameters can be bound to the model
• hierarchical routes

install

npm install plastiq-router

How?

Declare Your Routes

var router = require('plastiq-router');
 
var routes = {
  home:  router.route('/'),
  posts: router.route('/posts'),
  post:  router.route('/posts/:postId')
};

Start the Router

router.start();

By default it uses the History API for nice clean URLs, but you can use #hash URLs too if you feel strongly about it.

router.start(router.hash);

Render the Routes

In your plastiq render function, just use the different routes to conditionally render different HTML, depending on the current URL:

function render() {
  return h('div',
    routes.home(function () {
      return h('h1', 'Home');
    }),
    routes.post(function (params) {
      return [
        h('h1', 'Post ' + params.postId),
        h('.post', posts[params.postId])
      ];
    })
  );
}

When the URL is / the code inside the routes.home() function will render. When the URL is /posts/blah, the routes.post() function will render, being passed the parameters {postId: 'blah'}.

Link to Routes

You can create a link to a route:

routes.post({postId: 'blah'}).link('My Post on Blah');

Sometimes you may want to indicate that this route is the current one and highlight it in CSS by giving it a class:

var route = routes.post({postId: 'blah'});
route.link({class: {active: route.active}}, 'My Post on Blah');

Bind the Model

You can bind your model onto a route, so when the model changes, the URL changes, and when the URL changes, the model changes:

var search = router.route('/search');
 
function renderSearch(model) {
  return search({q: [model, 'search']}, function () {
    h('label', 'Search', h('input', {binding: [model, 'search']}))
  });
}

When you type asdf into the search box, the URL will become /search?q=asdf. If you go to /search?q=bobo the search box will contain bobo.

Setting up the Model

You can set your model up when you arrive at a route by setting onarrival. If it returns a promise, it will re-render the page when the promise resolves:

var routes = {
  var posts = router.route('/posts'),
  var post = router.route('/posts/:postId')
};
 
function renderPosts(model) {
  function loadPosts() {
    // return a promise, so we re-render when the posts have loaded
    return httpism.get('/api/posts').then(function (response) {
      model.posts = response.body;
    })
  }
 
  return routes.posts({onarrival: loadPosts}, function () {
    h('ul',
      model.posts.map(function (post) {
        // render a link to each post
        return h('li', routes.post({postId: post.id}).link(post.title));
      })
    )
  });
}

example

You can see this example in action here

• On the search page, notice how the URL changes as you type the search query.

var plastiq = require('plastiq');
var h = plastiq.html;
var router = require('plastiq-router');
 
var routes = {
  root: router.route('/'),
  document: router.route('/document/:documentId'),
  search: router.route('/search')
};
 
router.start();
 
function render(model) {
  return h('div',
    renderLinks(),
 
    routes.root(function () {
      return h('ol.documents',
        model.documents.map(function (d, index) {
          return h('li', routes.document({documentId: index}).a(d.title));
        })
      );
    }),
 
    routes.document(function (params) {
      return renderDocument(model.documents[params.documentId]);
    }),
 
    routes.search({q: [model, 'query']}, function () {
      return h('div',
        h('h1', 'search'),
        h('input', {type: 'text', binding: [model, 'query']}),
        h('ol.results',
          model.searchDocuments(model.query).map(function (d) {
            return h('li', routes.document({documentId: d.id}).a(d.title));
          })
        )
      );
    })
  );
}
 
var model = {
  documents: [
    {id: 0, title: 'One', content: 'With just one polka dot, nothing can be achieved...'},
    {id: 1, title: 'Two', content: 'Sometimes I am two people. Johnny is the nice one...'},
    {id: 2, title: 'Three', content: 'To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness...'}
  ],
  searchDocuments: function (q) {
    var query = q? q.toLowerCase(): undefined;
 
    return this.documents.filter(function (d) {
      return query && d.title.toLowerCase().indexOf(query) >= 0 || d.content.toLowerCase().indexOf(query) >= 0;
    });
  }
};
 
function renderLinks() {
  return [
    routes.root().a('Home'),
    ' | ',
    routes.search().a('Search')
    ' | ',
    h('a', {href: 'https://github.com/featurist/plastiq-router'}, 'Github')
  ];
}
 
function renderDocument(d) {
  return h('.document',
    h('h1', d.title),
    h('.content', d.content)
  );
}
 
plastiq.append(document.body, render, model);

API

start

router.start([options]);

Starts the router, adding event handlers for navigation.

• options.history - a history driver, currently two supported: router.historyApi (the default) and router.hash.

stop

router.stop();

Stops the router, removing event handlers for navigation. However does not remove existing routes, for that see router.clear(). This is particularly useful in test teardown.

clear

router.clear();

Clears all routes, removes event handlers. This is a complete teardown of the router, unlike router.stop().

create a route

var route = router.route(pattern);

• pattern - the path pattern: / or /path, or /path/:id, or /path/:id/:path*
• route - the route, to be used in rendering, see below

render a route

Routes can be rendered in two forms, passive and active. Passive routes do not modify the route parameters, active routes bind the model to the route parameters, effectively allowing the URL to change as the model changes.

passive routes

route(function (params) {
  return vdom;
});

If the route is active, returns the vdom passing the params taken from the route to the function. If the route is not active, undefined is returned.

• params - the parameters taken from the route, these can be from :param elements in the route pattern or query string parameters.

active routes

route(bindings, function () {
  return vdom;
});

• bindings - how the model binds on to the route parameters, takes the form:

  {
    param1: [model, 'param1'],
    param2: [model, 'param2']
  }

  Where the object keys are the parameter names, and the values are the bindings onto the model.

  When these parameters change, by default, the URL will replace the old URL. If you want to ensure that changing a parameter moves the browser forward in history, you can name the parameter in the push object:

  {
    param1: [model, 'param1'],
    param2: [model, 'param2'],
    push: {param1: true}
  }

  Here, if param2 changes, the URL will be replaced. But if param1 changes the URL will be pushed, and you can go back to the previous value.

onarrival, ondeparture

You can setup or cleanup your model on the events onarrival and ondeparture:

route(
  {
    onarrival: function (params) {
      // setup model
    },
 
    ondeparture: function () {
      // cleanup model
    }
  },
  functon () {
    return vdom;
  }
);

• params - the parameters taken from the route, these can be from :param elements in the route pattern or query string parameters.

under

Hierarchies of routes can be made by using route.under(render), which executes the render function if the current location is on or under the route.

Let's say we have a route:

var posts = router.route('/posts');

You can use posts.under() to match on URLs like /posts or /posts/1 or /posts/1/comments, etc.

function render() {
  return h('div',
    posts.under(function () {
      return h('div',
        posts(function () {
          // show all posts
        }),
        post(function (params) {
          // show just one post
        })
      });
    })
  );
}

If you don't pass a function to route.under() it will return an object with an active field, set to true if the current URL is on or under the route, or false otherwise.

pattern

You can access the route's pattern. Compatible with express, so they're useful if you're trying to match routes on the server-side.

var posts = router.route('/posts/:id');
 
app.get(posts.pattern, function (req, res) { ... });

route instances

var routeInstance = route([params]);

• params - an optional object containing the parameters of the form:

  {param1: 'param1 value', param2: 'param2 value'}

Routes can be used from the server-side too! Although really only href works or makes any sense.

href

routeInstance.href

The root-relative HREF of the route - of the form /path.

active

routeInstance.active

Whether the route is currently active.

push, replace

routeInstance.push()
routeInstance.replace()

Either push the route onto the history stack (using history.pushState) or replace the current URL (using history.replaceState). Replace only works with the router.historyApi driver, which is the default.

a, anchor, link

routeInstance.link([options], contents, ...)
routeInstance.a([options], contents, ...)

Generates virtual DOM for an anchor for the route, passing the arguments to h('a', options, contents, ...), but with the correct href and onclick properties set.

querystring

If you need complex values in query string parameters (e.g. arrays), you can provide a query string library that supports that (e.g. qs or querystring)

router.querystring = require('qs');