🧭 Handle all your routing with proper deep links and handle them declaratively!

What this package is about

This package takes declaratively defined Routes and receives a URI during navigation, evaluates those and then returns a PageRoute for the correct page. This means, you can now benefit from loose coupling and navigate using:

Navigator.of(context).pushNamed('/articles/$id')

instead of hardcoding the corresponding widget everytime:

Navigator.of(context)
  .push(MaterialPageRoute(builder: (_) => ArticlePage(id)));

What this package is not about

This package doesn't catch incoming deep links from other apps. For this, I recommend uni_links.

You can, however, combine both packages. Just forward any received deep links to your Navigator and flutter_deep_linking takes care of resolving them. This also works with the initial deep link:

String initialLink = await getInitialLink(); // from uni_links
return MaterialApp(
  initialRoute: initialLink,
  onGenerateRoute: router.onGenerateRoute,   // from flutter_deep_linking
  // ...
);

Getting started

1. 🧭 Create a Router containing all your routes:

final router = Router(
  routes: [
    Route(
      // This matches any HTTP or HTTPS URI pointing to schul-cloud.org.
      // Due to `isOptional`, this also matches URIs without a scheme or domain,
      // but not other domains.
      matcher: Matcher.webHost('schul-cloud.org', isOptional: true),
      // These nested routes are evaluated only if the above condition matches.
      routes: [
        Route(
          matcher: Matcher.path('courses'),
          materialBuilder: (_, __) => CoursesPage(),
          routes: [
            // If this route matches, it is used. Otherwise, we fall back to the
            // outer courses-route.
            Route(
              // {courseId} is a parameter matches a single path segment.
              matcher: Matcher.path('{courseId}'),
              materialBuilder: (_, RouteResult result) {
                // You can access the matched parameters using `result[<name>]`.
                return CourseDetailPage(result['courseId']);
              },
            ),
          ],
        ),
        Route(
          // Matcher.path can also match nested paths.
          matcher: Matcher.path('user/settings'),
          materialBuilder: (_, __) => SettingsPage(),
        ),
      ],
    ),
    // This route doesn't specify a matcher and hence matches any route.
    Route(
      materialBuilder: (_, RouteResult result) => NotFoundPage(result.uri),
    ),
  ],
);

Note: Flutter also defines classes called Route & RouteBuilder which can lead to some confusion. If you import package:flutter/widgets.dart in the same file as flutter_deep_linking, you can ignore Flutter's Route & RouteBuilder with import 'package:flutter/widgets.dart' hide Route, RouteBuilder;.

Router accepts a list of Routes which are searched top to bottom, depth first. Using Matchers you can match parts of the URI. Inner Matchers can't access parts of the URI that have already been matched by an outer Matcher.

To build the actual page, you can specify either of:

• Route.builder: Takes a RouteResult and returns an instance of Flutter's Route.
• Route.materialBuilder (Convenience property): Takes a [BuildContext] and a RouteResult and returns a widget, which is then wrapped in MaterialPageRoute.

2. 🎯 Let your Router take care of resolving URIs in MaterialApp (or CupertinoApp or a custom Navigator):

MaterialApp(
  onGenerateRoute: router.onGenerateRoute,
  // ...
)

3. 🚀 Use your new routes!

When navigating, use navigator.pushNamed(uriString) instead of calling navigator.push(builder) and benefit from loose coupling!

And if you build an app in addition to a website, you can use a package like uni_links to receive incoming links and directly forward them to flutter_deep_linking.

More information

Matchers

Available Matchers:

• Matcher.scheme: Matches a URI scheme like https.
• Matcher.webScheme: Conveniently matches http or https.
• Matcher.host: Matches a URI host like schul-cloud.org.
• Matcher.webHost: Conveniently matches a webScheme (see above) and a URI host.
• Matcher.path: Matches a single or multiple URI path segments like courses/{courseId}, whereas courseId is a placeholder and will match exactly one segment.

You can also combine Matchers within a single Route:

• matcher1 & matcher2 matches both Matchers in sequence.
• matcher1 | matcher2 evaluates both Matchers in sequence and returns the first match.

RouteResult

RouteResult most importantly contains:

• uri: The initial URI (which can be used, e.g., to access query parameters).
• parameters: A Map<String, String> of matched parameters, also accessible via result[<name>].
• settings: The RouteSettings that should be forwarded to the generated (Flutter) Route.