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Aviator

Aviator is a front-end router built for modular single page applications.

You tell Aviator what parts of your application should handle what routes. It sends requests to the right place.

Aviator:

  • has a central, declarative place to define your routes
  • doesn't care what framework you use
  • supports push state and hash url routing
  • builds a simple yet rich request object with named and query params
  • supports nesting routes and passing special options to certain urls
  • lets you edit the url to trigger changes or update it silently to keep state

Build Status

Install

npm install aviator

API

Aviator exposes a small API:

  • setRoutes: parses the routes config object
  • dispatch: makes the routes go pew pew
  • navigate: routes a given path
  • refresh: re-dispatches the current URI
  • getCurrentURI: get the currently matched URI
  • getCurrentRequest: get the currently matched Request
  • hrefFor: generate a route for the given path

Configuration properties

overwrite to customize

  • pushStateEnabled: Route via pushState or hashchange. Defaults to feature detection.
  • linkSelector: clicks on elements that matches this selector is hijacked and routed using the href attribute. Default it is "a.navigate"
  • root: All routing will done on top of the root. Default it is ""

Aviator.setRoutes

Pass an object that represents all routes within the app. The object should be nested to describe different parts of the url:

Aviator.setRoutes({
  '/marketing': {
    '/campaigns': {
    }
  }
});

Keys in the object are either strings that represent routes, or a special key called target. The value of this key is an object that accepts and responds to urls.

Targets are objects that handle the route changes. They have methods that correspond to the values of the other elements in that level of the routes object.

Aviator.setRoutes({
  '/campaigns': {
    target: CampaignsTarget,
    '/': 'index',
    '/add': 'add'
  }
});

In the above case, hitting "/campaigns/add" would call the add method on the on the CampaignsTarget.

The special key /* indicates a method on that target to be called before any other route handler methods on that level and any subsequent levels in the object.

With the config below:

Aviator.setRoutes({
  '/partners': {
    target: PartnersTarget
    '/*': 'show'
    '/marketing': {
      target: MarketingTarget,
      '/*': 'show',
      '/': 'index',
      '/campaigns': {
        target: CampaignsTarget
        '/': 'index',
        '/add': 'add'
      }
    }
  }
});

Hitting the url "/partners/marketing" calls

  1. partnersTarget#show
  2. marketingTarget#show
  3. marketingTarget#index

Hitting the url "/partners/marketing/campaigns/add" calls

  1. partnersTarget#show
  2. marketingTarget#show
  3. campaignsTarget#add

Instead of a method name string, the value of a route key can be an object with a method name and options:

Aviator.setRoutes({
  '/marketing': {
    target: MarketingTarget,
    '/*': 'show',
    '/reputation': {
      target: ReputationTarget,
      '/': { method: 'show', options: { renderMarketingLayout: false } }
    }
  }
});

Upon hitting "/marketing/reputation", marketingTarget#show and reputationTarget#show will be called in that order, and both will be passed the options object.

Finally, route handlers may also be specified as plain functions:

Aviator.setRoutes({
  '/users': {
    target: UsersTarget,
    '/*': 'beforeAll',
    '/': function () {
      // Handle the route here
    }
  }
});

Upon hitting "/users/", usersTarget#beforeAll and the anonymous function above will be called in that order.

We encourage the use of targets over anonymous functions, but we provide this as an option in case it fits your stylistic needs.

Not Found Handlers

Aviator allows you to specify a method to be called when no route matches via the notFound key. Much like normal routes, these can be added on a scope-by-scope basis. When a route cannot be found, only the /* matcher, and the notFound of the nearest scope will be called. Here is an example configuration.

Aviator.setRoutes({
  '/marketing': {
    target: MarketingTarget,
    '/*': 'show',
    '/reputation': {
      target: ReputationTarget,
      '/': { method: 'show', options: { renderMarketingLayout: false } }
    },
    notFound: 'notFound'
  }
});

Hitting either /marketing/bad-route/ or /marketing/reputation/bad-route/ will call the MarketingTarget.show and MarketingTarget.notFound methods. However, hitting /bad-route/ will call nothing unless a notFound matcher is found in the root context.

Not found handlers may also be specified using plain functions.

namedParams

Aviator.setRoutes({
  '/users': {
    target: UsersTarget,
      '/:id': {
        '/edit': 'edit'
      }
    }
  }
});

The above config will match urls like '/users/32/edit' or '/users/hojberg/edit' and pass in '32' or 'hojberg' respectively as a param in the Request's namedParam hash (first argument passed to actions). Access them like so: request.namedParams.id in the edit function of UsersTarget, where request is the first argument.

Aviator.dispatch

After having setup routes via Aviator.setRoutes, call Aviator.dispatch to get things going, and start listening for routing events.

No matter how many times this is called it will only setup listeners for route events once.

Dispatch also sets up a click event handler that will pick up links matching the selector that was set in linkSelector and route to its href attribute instead of forcing a full page load.

What an action on a target receives

When a action is called on the target, it is passed a Request object and a simple options hash. The Request object includes namedParams, queryParams, params (combined named and query params), matchedRouted,and uri. The options hash is constructed from any options defined in setRoutes that matches the current route.

Aviator.navigate

After having dispatched (Aviator.dispatch) calling change the url and force a routing by calling Aviator.navigate.

For instance calling

Aviator.navigate('/users/all');

Will change the URL to "/users/all". If the root property was set to "/admin", the same navigate call would change the url to "/admin/users/all".

If the browser does not support pushState or you have set pushStateEnabled to false, Aviator will instead take the same navigate call and add it to window.location.hash so the url would look like this "/admin#/users/all".

If you wish to replace the history item instead pushing to the history list call navigate with the replace option: Aviator.navigate('/users/all', { replace: true });

Pass in the queryParams option that will be parsed into a queryString and added to the navigated uri: Aviator.navigate('/users', { queryParams: { filter: [1,2] }}); will navigate to "/users?filter[]=1&filter[]=2"

Pass in the namedParams option to interpolate params into the url before navigate to it: Aviator.navigate('/users/:id/edit', { namedParams: { id: 3 }); will navigate to "/users/3/edit"

If you wish to change the url, but not have it call the route target, pass in { silent: true } like so Aviator.navigate('/users', { silent: true });

Aviator.hrefFor

This function accepts a URI and an optional object with the same queryParams and namedParams as Aviator.navigate. It returns a String that can be used to link to that path.

For example, calling Aviator.hrefFor('/users/:id/edit', { namedParams: { id: 3 }, queryParams: { force: true } }) will generate the String '/users/3/edit?force=true'.

This can be used in conjection with the a.navigate link selector to declarativly create links. The below JSX snippet creates an <a> element that links to /home/?loggedIn=false.

  <a className='navigate', href={Aviator.hrefFor('/home/', { queryParams: { loggedIn: false } })}>
    Home
  </a>

Aviator.refresh

re-dispatch the current uri

Browser support

Aviator supports modern browsers: IE9+, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera

Build aviator.js

Aviator uses browserify to combine modules. Run grunt build to create aviator.js

Tests

Aviator uses Jasmine specs. They can be run from the cli:

grunt test

Or in your browser via a simple http server:

grunt jasmine:all:build
open http://localhost:8000/_SpecRunner.html && python -m SimpleHTTPServer

Authors

Simon Højberg (hojberg), Bart Flaherty (flahertyb), and Barnaby Claydon (barnabyc)

Logo by Adam Hunter Peck