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Transition plan

Learn how Router-Lite handles the re-entrance of the same component and how to override the default behavior.

The transition plan in router-lite is meant for deciding how to process a navigation instruction that intends to load the same component that is currently loaded/active, but with different parameters. As the router-lite uses a sensible default based on the user-voice, probably you never need to touch this area. However, it is still good to know how to change those defaults, whenever you are in need to do that (and we all know that such needs will arise from time to time).

Transition plan can be configured using the transitionPlan property in the routing configuration. The allowed values are replace, invoke-lifecycles, none or a function that returns one of these values.

  • replace: This instructs the router to completely remove the current component and create a new one, behaving as if the component is changed. This is the default behavior if the parameters are changed.

  • invoke-lifecycles: This instructs the router to call the lifecycle hooks (canUnload, canLoad, unloading and loading) of the component.

  • none: Does nothing. This is the default behavior, when nothing is changed.

How does it work

The child routes inherits the transitionPlan from the parent.

When the transitionPlan property in the routing configuration is not configured, router-lite uses replace when the parameters are changed and none otherwise.

It might be normal to think that the default selection of the replace transition plan when the parameter changes, to be an overkill and the default selection should have been invoke-lifecycles instead. As a matter of fact that's the default option in Aurelia1 as well as in earlier versions of Aurelia2. However, as understood from the user-voices that replace would in this case cause less surprises. Hence the default behavior is changed to replace.

Transition plans are inherited

Transition plans defined on the root are inherited by the children. The example below shows that the transitionPlan on the root is configured to replace and this transition plan is inherited by the child route configuration. This means that every time the link is clicked, the component is created new and the view reflects that as well.

import { customElement } from '@aurelia/runtime-html';
import { IRouteViewModel, route } from '@aurelia/router-lite';

@customElement({ name: 'ce-one', template: 'ce1 ${id1} ${id2}' })
class CeOne implements IRouteViewModel {
  private static id1: number = 0;
  private static id2: number = 0;
  // Every instance gets a new id.
  private readonly id1: number = ++CeOne.id1;
  private id2: number;
  public canLoad(): boolean {
    // Every time the lifecycle hook is called, a new id is generated.
    this.id2 = ++CeOne.id2;
    return true;
  }
}

@route({
  transitionPlan: 'replace',
  routes: [
    {
      id: 'ce1',
      path: ['', 'ce1', 'ce1/:id'],
      component: CeOne,
    },
  ],
})
@customElement({
  name: 'my-app',
  template: `<a load="ce1">ce-one</a> <a load="ce1/1">ce-one/1</a><br><au-viewport></au-viewport>`,
})
export class MyApp {}

See this example in action below.

Use a function to dynamically select transition plan

You can use a function to dynamically select transition plan based on route nodes. The following example shows that, where for every components, apart from the root component, invoke-lifecycles transition plan is selected.

import { customElement } from '@aurelia/runtime-html';
import { IRouteViewModel, route } from '@aurelia/router-lite';

@customElement({ name: 'ce-one', template: 'ce1 ${id1} ${id2}' })
class CeOne implements IRouteViewModel {
  private static id1: number = 0;
  private static id2: number = 0;
  // Every instance gets a new id.
  private readonly id1: number = ++CeOne.id1;
  private id2: number;
  public canLoad(): boolean {
    // Every time the lifecycle hook is called, a new id is generated.
    this.id2 = ++CeOne.id2;
    return true;
  }
}

@route({
  transitionPlan(_current: RouteNode, next: RouteNode) {
    return next.component.Type === MyApp ? 'replace' : 'invoke-lifecycles';
  },
  routes: [
    {
      id: 'ce1',
      path: ['', 'ce1', 'ce1/:id'],
      component: CeOne,
    },
  ],
})
@customElement({
  name: 'my-app',
  template: `<a load="ce1">ce-one</a> <a load="ce1/1">ce-one/1</a><br><au-viewport></au-viewport>`,
})
export class MyApp {}

The behavior can be validated by alternatively clicking the links multiple times and observing that the CeOne#id2 increases, whereas CeOne#id1 remains constant. This shows that every attempt to load the CeOne only invokes the lifecycle hooks without re-instantiating the component every time. You can try out this example below.

This can be interesting when dealing with sibling viewports, as you can select different transition plan for different siblings.

import { customElement } from '@aurelia/runtime-html';
import { IRouteViewModel, route, RouteNode } from '@aurelia/router-lite';

@customElement({ name: 'ce-two', template: 'ce2 ${id1} ${id2}' })
class CeTwo implements IRouteViewModel {
  private static id1: number = 0;
  private static id2: number = 0;
  private readonly id1: number = ++CeTwo.id1;
  private id2: number;
  public canLoad(): boolean {
    this.id2 = ++CeTwo.id2;
    return true;
  }
}

@customElement({ name: 'ce-one', template: 'ce1 ${id1} ${id2}' })
class CeOne implements IRouteViewModel {
  private static id1: number = 0;
  private static id2: number = 0;
  private readonly id1: number = ++CeOne.id1;
  private id2: number;
  public canLoad(): boolean {
    this.id2 = ++CeOne.id2;
    return true;
  }
}

@route({
  transitionPlan(current: RouteNode, next: RouteNode) {
    return next.component.Type === CeTwo ? 'invoke-lifecycles' : 'replace';
  },
  routes: [
    {
      id: 'ce1',
      path: ['ce1', 'ce1/:id'],
      component: CeOne,
    },
    {
      id: 'ce2',
      path: ['ce2', 'ce2/:id'],
      component: CeTwo,
    },
  ],
})
@customElement({
  name: 'ro-ot',
  template: `
<a load="ce1/1@$1+ce2/1@$2">ce1/1@$1+ce2/1@$2</a>
<a load="ce1/2@$1+ce2/2@$2">ce1/2@$1+ce2/2@$2</a>
<div id="content">
  <au-viewport name="$1"></au-viewport>
  <au-viewport name="$2"></au-viewport>
</div>
`,
})
export class MyApp {}

The example above selects invoke-lifecycles for the CeTwo and replace for everything else. When you alternatively click the links multiple times, you can see that CeOne is re-instantiated every time whereas for CeTwo only the lifecycles hooks are invoked and the instance is reused. You can see the example in action below.

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