This gist contains a short assignment we'd like everyone to complete before our formal lesson. The prework involves reading some of the React Router documentation, and will allow us to keep the lesson more hands on.
- Fork this gist
- On your own copy, go through the listed readings and answer associated questions
You will not be turning this in; it's for your own understanding/learning/benefit 😁
React Router is a library that allows us to make our single page React applications mimic the behavior of multipage apps. It provides the ability to use browser history, allowing users to navigate with forward / back buttons and bookmark links to specific views of the app. Most modern sites use some form of routing. React Router exposes this functionality through a series of components. Let's start by looking at the overall structure of an app using router:
Read through this guide.
React Router provides a series of helpful components that allow our apps to use routing. These can be split into roughly 3 categories:
- Routers
- Route Matcher
- Route Changers
Any code that uses a React-Router-provided component must be wrapped in a router component. There are lots of router components we can use, but we'll focus on one in particular. Let's look into the docs to learn more.
- What is a
<BrowserRouter />?
BrowserRouter uses the history API object generated by {} to keep the user interface in sync with the URL currently in the address bar.
- What does the
<Route />component do?
The Route component renders something based on the url in the address bar. For example, it will render "App" or "Home" if the url matches the given ("/").
Route has 3 props that can be used to determine what will be rendered: component, render, and children.
For component:
<Route> exact path="/cheese" component={Cheese} </Route>
Cheese will be rendered when the url matches "/cheese"
Render can be used for inline rendering and passing in extra props:
<Route> exact path="/cheese" render={() => (<div>List of Items</div>)} </Route>
- What does the
<Routes />component do?
The Routes component is a wrapper for the Route components?
- What does the
<Outlet />component do?
Outlet is used for nesting routes and making sure that the parent route knows about the children.
- What does the
<Link />component do? How does a user interact with it?
The Link component holds links that the user can click on (or select using the keyboard) to navigate to the given address. It renders an tag with an href behind the scenes, making it fully accessible for people using screen readers.
- What does the
<NavLink />component do? How does a user interact with it?
NavLink is a special version of the Link component that adds styling to the rendered element when the url matches the given address.