Trails

Just routing.

Trails is a tiny (2.4k unminified, 1.2k minified) client-side library for handling on-page routing.

The route parsing has been heavily borrowed from Bogart - I just wanted client-side routing without having to pull in a framework like Backbone.

Usage

Initialize Trails like so:

var router = new Trails;

Now let's register a basic route. Setting up a new route is pretty easy:

router.route('/', function (path) {
  // do stuff on the root rotue
});

The path argument passed to the route handler has the following properties:

• params (Object): The parameters passed via the URL

• route (String): The route signature that got handled

• computed (String): The actual path that was hit

An example using a parameter:

router.route('/say/:message', function (path) {
  $('#message').text(path.params.message);
});

The splat (*) operator is also supported:

router.route('/text/*', function (path) {
  $('#body').text(path.splat)
})l

Protip: Use router.allRoutes() to see all your current routes

To run a function before any route handler is called, use before():

router.before(function (path) {
  console.log('I get the same arguments as a route handler!');
});

You can also register functions to run after route handlers are called, using after(). Trails supports multiple before/after handlers - they will be run in the order they were attached.

Contributing

Trails is written in CoffeeScript. Building the minified version is easy, just run gulp.

Outstanding TODOs in order of priority:

• Before/after hooks for routes

• beforeAll/afterAll hooks

• Gulpfile for compiling/minifying

• Landing page

• Example page (that isn't terrible)

Pull requests are welcome.

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Copyright Duncan Smith 2013

MIT License