How to implement a routing system in a single-page application with JavaScript?
13/03/2024
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5
min
A single-page application (SPA) is a web application or website that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current webpage with new data from the web server, instead of the default method of the browser loading entire new pages. The goal is faster transitions that make the website feel more like a native app.
In a SPA, all necessary HTML, JavaScript, and CSS code is either retrieved by the browser with a single page load, or partials are dynamically loaded and added to the page as necessary, usually in response to user actions.
To implement routing in a single page application (SPA) with JavaScript, we will use the history API in JavaScript, which lets you manage the session history of a browser. We can combine this with the popstate event that fires whenever a user clicks onto a back, forward, or similar navigation event.
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To illustrate this, let's create a simple SPA with two routes: "Home" and "About".
Let's start off with the basic structure of our HTML:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Simple SPA</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="app">
<nav>
<a href="/" id="home-link">Home</a>
<a href="/about" id="about-link">About</a>
</nav>
<div id="content">
<!-- Content will be loaded here based on the route -->
</div>
</div>
<script src="app.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
In the JavaScript file app.js, we will handle the routing, preventing the default behaviour of the links and use the History API to manage the routes.
document.getElementById('home-link').addEventListener('click', function (event) {
event.preventDefault();
history.pushState(null, '', event.target.href);
document.getElementById('content').innerHTML = 'Home - Welcome to our SPA';
});
document.getElementById('about-link').addEventListener('click', function (event) {
event.preventDefault();
history.pushState(null, '', event.target.href);
document.getElementById('content').innerHTML = 'About - Here is some information about us';
});
Note: The pushState() method adds a state to the browser's session history stack and updates the URL without causing a page refresh.
At this point, clicking on the links will change the browser URL and update the content on the page as expected.
However, if you go to the URL directly or refresh the page, it will fail because the server has not been setup to handle these routes. So the only missing piece here is to have some sort of mechanism on the server side to route all requests to this single page.
In a production environment, any server-side language/framework (Node.js, PHP, etc.) or server software (Apache, Nginx) will enable you to set up these redirection rules. At development time, you can run a simple static server from your project directory.
While the above example covers a very basic SPA routing system, in a more complex application you would likely use a routing library like vue-router for Vue.js, react-router for React or Angular's built-in router.
Furthermore, it's best to externalize routes and handlers to make the route management scalable rather than inline like the given example.
Please adapt the given example code according to your application, environment and requirements.
and replace all numbered list with "Step 1", "Step 2" etc.
If this text doesn't contain a numbered list just don't change anything and respond with the same text.
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