Navigation

Step 5: Create Navigation

After setting up the basic routing and implementing lazy loading and fallbacks, we now need to create navigation links to enable users to navigate through the pages of our app.

To achieve this, React Router provides the Link and NavLink components, which serve as analogs to the HTML a tag. These components allow us to update the URL in the browser address bar without reloading the page.

Here is an example of using the Link component:

• Line 1: It imports the Link component from the react-router-dom library.
• Line 3: The <Link> element represents a link. It allows users to navigate a specific route or path in the application.
  • to="path_value": The to prop specifies the target route or path that the link should navigate to. We replace path_value with the actual path we want the link to point to.
  • Any text: The text or content will be displayed as the link. We can replace Any text with the desired text or JSX content.

Note

The Link and NavLink components are similar, but the NavLink component provides additional styling options if the current URL matches the to prop value.

We can customize the to prop and the link's content per the application's requirements.

Example: Let's create a separate component called Bar to handle the navigation for the entire app.

Code explanation: This code defines a functional component called Bar that represents a navigation bar. It renders a <nav> element containing an unordered list <ul> with three list items <li>. Each list item includes a Link component from the react-router-dom library.

• Line 6: The first Link component represents a link to the "Home" page.
• Line 9: The second Link component represents a link to the "About" page.
• Line 12: The third Link component represents a link to the "Contacts" page.

These Link components enable navigation within the application by updating the URL in the browser address bar without reloading the page. When a user clicks on a link, the corresponding route or path is activated, and the associated component will be rendered.

After creating the Bar component, we can incorporate it into the App component, where we build the complete app. Including the navigation component before the Suspense component is essential to ensure consistent access to navigation throughout the app.

Complete code

Please take a moment to click the links and observe the view's re-rendering. Additionally, inspect the App and Bar components closely as they encompass the complete React Router logic for this app.