How to link out of a native view

[jspooner]

We’ve created a native index page for /hikes to display a native list. How do we link from this page to our Rails HTML pages at /hikes/:id?

It seems the handle function in NavigatorDelegate could pass a reference to the navigator to the native page, allowing it to call navigator.route(VisitProposal). Is this the recommended approach?

[leonvogt]

Hi @jspooner,

You're right! Passing the navigator into your native view is the typical approach. It lets you call navigator.route(...) to transition back to your HTML pages seamlessly, either by using a VisitProposal as you mentioned, or simply by passing a plain URL.

There's actually an official example of this in the demo app that follows this pattern:

func handle(proposal: VisitProposal, from navigator: Navigator) -> ProposalResult {
    switch proposal.viewController {
    case NumbersViewController.pathConfigurationIdentifier:
        return .acceptCustom(NumbersViewController(
            url: proposal.url,
            navigator: navigator
            )
        )

    default:
        return .accept
    }
}

final class NumbersViewController: UITableViewController, PathConfigurationIdentifiable {
    static var pathConfigurationIdentifier: String { "numbers" }

    init(url: URL, navigator: NavigationHandler) {
        self.url = url
        self.navigator = navigator
        super.init(nibName: nil, bundle: nil)
    }

    ...

    override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, didSelectRowAt indexPath: IndexPath) {
        let detailURL = url.appendingPathComponent("\(indexPath.row + 1)")

        // Navigate from the native view controller back to Rails
        navigator?.route(detailURL)
        tableView.deselectRow(at: indexPath, animated: true)
    }
}

[jspooner]

Thanks!

It might be good to mention this on the Native Screens Guide.

[joemasilotti]

Great call, @jspooner! PRs are welcome if you're up for it.

https://github.com/hotwired/hotwire-native-site