WARNING: This documentation is for an old version of mithril! Please see the current docs for more accurate info.

API (v0.1.4)

Core

Routing

Data

History

m.route

Routing is a system that allows creating Single-Page-Applications (SPA), i.e. applications that can go from a page to another without causing a full browser refresh.

It enables seamless navigability while preserving the ability to bookmark each page individually, and the ability to navigate the application via the browser's history mechanism.

This method overloads 3 different units of functionality:

  • m.route(rootElement, defaultRoute, routes) - defines the available URLs in an application, and their respective modules

  • m.route(path) - redirects to another route

  • m.route(element) - an extension to link elements that unobtrusively abstracts away the routing mode

Routing is single-page-application (SPA) friendly, and can be implemented using either location.hash, HTML5 URL rewriting or location.querystring. See m.route.mode for the caveats of each implementation.

Defining routes

Usage

To define a list of routes, you need to specify a host DOM element, a default route and a key-value map of possible routes and respective modules to be rendered.

The example below defines 3 routes, to be rendered in <body>. home, login and dashboard are modules. We'll see how to define a module in a bit.

m.route(document.body, "/", {
    "/": home,
    "/login": login,
    "/dashboard": dashboard,
});

Routes can take arguments, by prefixing words with a colon :

The example below shows a route that takes an userID parameter

//a sample module
var dashboard = {
    controller: function() {
        this.id = m.route.param("userID");
    },
    view: function(controller) {
        m.render("body", controller.id);
    }
}

//define a route
m.route(document.body, "/dashboard/johndoe", {
    "/dashboard/:userID": dashboard
});

//setup routes to start w/ the `#` symbol
m.route.mode = "hash";

This redirects to the URL http://server/#/dashboard/johndoe and yields:

<body>johndoe</body>

Above, dashboard is a module. It contains a controller and a view properties. When the URL matches a route, the respective module's controller is instantiated and passed as a parameter to the view.

In this case, since there's only route, the app redirects to the default route "/dashboard/johndoe".

The string johndoe is bound to the :userID parameter, which can be retrived programmatically in the controller via m.route.param("userID").

The m.route.mode defines which part of the URL to use for routing.

Signature

How to read signatures

void route(DOMElement rootElement, String defaultRoute, Object<Module> routes) { String mode, String param(String key) }

where:
    Module :: Object { void controller(), void view(Object controllerInstance) }

  • DOMElement root

    A DOM element which will contain the view's template.

  • String defaultRoute

    The route to redirect to if the current URL does not match any of the defined routes

  • Object routes

    A key-value map of possible routes and their respective modules. Keys are expected to be absolute pathnames, but can include dynamic parameters. Dynamic parameters are words preceded by a colon :

    {'/path/to/page/': pageModule} - a route with a basic pathname

    {'/path/to/page/:id': pageModule} - a route with a pathname that contains a dynamic parameter called id. This route would be selected if the URL was /path/to/page/1, /path/to/page/test, etc

    {'/user/:userId/book/:bookId': userBookModule} - a route with a pathname that contains two parameters

    Dynamic parameters are wild cards that allow selecting a module based on a URL pattern. The values that replace the dynamic parameters in a URL are available via m.route.param()

    Note that the URL component used to resolve routes is dependent on m.route.mode. By default, the querystring is considered the URL component to test against the routes collection

    If the current page URL matches a route, its respective module is activated. See m.module for information on modules.

  • m.route.mode

    String mode

    The m.route.mode property defines which URL portion is used to implement the routing mechanism. Its value can be set to either "search", "hash" or "pathname". Default value is "search"

    • search mode uses the querystring. This allows named anchors (i.e. <a href="#top">Back to top</a>, <a name="top"></a>) to work on the page, but routing changes causes page refreshes in IE8, due to its lack of support for history.pushState.

      Example URL: http://server/?/path/to/page

    • hash mode uses the hash. It's the only mode in which routing changes do not cause page refreshes in any browser. However, this mode does not support named anchors.

      Example URL: http://server/#/path/to/page

    • pathname mode allows routing URLs that contains no special characters, however this mode requires server-side setup in order to support bookmarking and page refreshes. It also causes page refreshes in IE8.

      Example URL: http://server/path/to/page

      The simplest server-side setup possible to support pathname mode is to serve the same content regardless of what URL is requested. In Apache, this URL rewriting can be achieved using ModRewrite.

  • m.route.param

    String param(String key)

    Route parameters are dynamic values that can be extracted from the URL based on the signature of the currently active route.

    A route without parameters looks like this:

    "/path/to/page/"

    A route with parameters might look like this:

    "/path/to/page/:id" - here id is the name of the route parameter

    If the currently active route is /dashboard/:userID and the current URL is /dashboard/johndoe, then calling m.route.param("userID") returns "johndoe"

    • String key

      The name of a route parameter

    • returns String value

      The value that maps to the parameter specified by key

Redirecting

Usage

You can programmatically redirect to another page. Given the example in the "Defining Routes" section:

m.route("/dashboard/marysue");

redirects to http://server/#/dashboard/marysue

Signature

How to read signatures

void route(String path)

  • String path

    The route to redirect to. Note that to redirect to a different page outside of the scope of Mithril's routing, you should use window.location

Mode abstraction

Usage

This method is meant to be used with a virtual element's config attribute. For example:

//Note that the '#' is not required in `href`, thanks to the `config` setting.
m("a[href='/dashboard/alicesmith']", {config: m.route});

This makes the href behave correctly regardless of which m.route.mode is selected. It's a good practice to always use the idiom above, instead of hardcoding ? or # in the href attribute.

See m() for more information on virtual elements.

Signature

How to read signatures

void route(DOMElement element, Boolean isInitialized)

  • DOMElement element

    an anchor element <a> with an href attribute that points to a route

  • Boolean isInitialized

    the method does not run if this flag is set to true. This is to make the method compatible with virtual DOM elements' config attribute (see m())