redux-first-router-link

UPDATE (July 1st 2017): We now have a NavLink package like react-router to show active styles for your links.

Installation

yarn add redux-first-router-link

Usage

import Link from 'redux-first-router-link'

// as a standard href path string:
<Link to='/list/db-graphql'>DB & GRAPHQL</Link>

// as an array of path segments:
<Link to={['list', 'react-redux']}>REACT & REDUX</Link>

// as an action object (RECOMMENDED APPROACH SO YOU CAN CHANGE ALL URLs FROM YOUR ROUTESMAP):
<Link to={{ type: 'LIST', payload: { category: 'fp' } }}>FP</Link>

In all 3 cases, a simple link will be rendered, eg:

<a to='/list/fp'>FP</a>

NavLink:

import { NavLink } from 'redux-first-router-link'

<NavLink
  to={{ type: 'LIST', payload: { category: 'redux-first-router' } }}
  activeClassName='active'
  activeStyle={{ color: 'purple' }}
  exact={true}
  strict={true}
  isActive={(match, location) => location.payload.category === 'redux-first-router'}
>
  Redux First Router
</NavLink>

NOTE: both <Link /> and <NavLink /> share the React Router API for easy use for those coming from there. Our components are a subset of React Router's Link component props API as there are several additional props. See below.

Recommendation

Creating your links using an action object is obviously the best solution, as it will allow you to change static path segments in the routesMap you pass to connectRoutes() at any time, without having to change any of your <Link /> components. That means you only have to change URLs in one place. AKA, your routesMap is your "single source of truth."

For example, if you have:

import { createStore, compose, applyMiddleware, combineReducers } from 'redux'
import createBrowserHistory from 'history/createBrowserHistory'
import connectRoutes from 'redux-first-router'

const history = createBrowserHistory()

const { enhancer, middleware, reducer } = connectRoutes(history, {
  LIST: '/list/:category'
})

const rootReducer = combineReducers({ location: reducer })
const store = createStore(rootReducer, compose(enhancer, applyMiddleware(middleware)))

Then you can change the static segment of the path at any time, eg:

const { middleware, enhancer, reducer } = connectRoutes(history, {
  LIST: '/browse/:category'
})

But its entirely up to you. If it's easier to start to thinking in terms of paths, go for it! If that's the case, we recommend the array syntax, since its easier to pass variables, eg:

const category = 'react-redux'
const to = ['list', category]
<Link to={to}>REACT & REDUX</Link>

vs

const category = 'react-redux'
const to = `/list/${category}` // can get long & yucky with lots of variables
<Link to={to}>REACT & REDUX</Link>

Additional Props:

• down: boolean = false - if true supplied, will trigger linking/dispatching onMouseDown instead of onMouseUp.
• shouldDispatch: boolean = true - if false will not dispatch (useful for SEO when action handled in a parent or child element in a fancy way)
• target: string - eg: '_blank' to open up URL in a new tab (same as standard target attribute to <a> tags)
• ...props: - you can pass any additional props that an <a> tag takes, such as className and style.

Familiar React Router Props:

• redirect: boolean = false - if true supplied, will dispatching your action as a redirect, resulting in the current page in the browser history being replaced rather than pushed. That means if the user presses the browser BACK button, he/she won't be able to go back to the previous page that had the link--he/she will go to the page before that. alias: replace
• onClick: (SyntheticEvent) => ?boolean - you can provide an onClick handler to do anything you want (e.g. play a sound), but if you return false or call event.preventDefault() it will prevent linking/dispatching just as you may be used to. TIP: use either instead of shouldDispatch when you want to dynamically determine whether to trigger the action or not!

React Router NavLink-only Props

• activeClassName: string - the class applied when the URL and to path match
• activeStyle: object - the style object applied when the URL and to path match
• exact: boolean = false - if true supplied, active class/styles will not be applied in this example: URL is /foo/bar and link to is /foo. Whereas by default they would match.
• strict: boolean = false - if there is a trailing slash in the to path or URL, they both must have the slash to match. If there is no slash, they must both have no slash.
• isActive: (match, location) => boolean - a custom function to determine whether the link is active. Return true if active. The match argument is identical to React Router and not very useful. The location is state.location.
• ariaCurrent: string - defaults to 'true' when active. It's for screen-readers. Learn more here.

Final Notes

• In previous versions the to prop was named href and the onClick prop was name onPress. Those still work, but they are identical to their new names. They will be removed eventually.

• redirect has replace as an alias for easy migration from React Router, but the terminology in our system is redirect. You won't here the word replace much, even though that's what happens to the browser history. The reason is because server-side redirects is central to the problem solved as well, not just client-side history replacement. In general, it's a more descriptive term for how the system responds to it.

Contributing

We use commitizen, so run npm run cm to make commits. A command-line form will appear, requiring you answer a few questions to automatically produce a nicely formatted commit. Releases, semantic version numbers, tags, changelogs and publishing to NPM will automatically be handled based on these commits thanks to semantic-release. Be good.

Tests

Reviewing a package's tests are a great way to get familiar with it. It's direct insight into the capabilities of the given package (if the tests are thorough). What's even better is a screenshot of the tests neatly organized and grouped (you know the whole "a picture says a thousand words" thing).

Below is a screenshot of this module's tests running in Wallaby ("An Integrated Continuous Testing Tool for JavaScript") which everyone in the React community should be using. It's fantastic and has taken my entire workflow to the next level. It re-runs your tests on every change along with comprehensive logging, bi-directional linking to your IDE, in-line code coverage indicators, and even snapshot comparisons + updates for Jest! I requestsed that feature by the way :). It's basically a substitute for live-coding that inspires you to test along your journey.