Consider allowing children in Navigation element

[drhayes]

I'm using redux-router and I'm relying on their Link elements. Regular <a> tags, like react-toolbox's Link component, reload the entire app instead of making the right kind of state change.

If the Navigation element allowed custom children then I'd be able to use it. Maybe inside of a <NavigationItem> element or something?

[EnzoMartin]

Why not just import the stylesheet from the Link tag and use the root class to style the router Link component?

You wouldn't want to wrap another Link element with it as it'll become problematic to ensure the styling is correct since the child element could have weird CSS styles that can't be handled easily

[drhayes]

Oh, ack -- I meant react-router. Sorry I made that more confusing!

It's not about styling. react-router Link components transition the SPA by pushing state to the HTML5 history. I mean, they also handle styling their active states, but that's secondary in my case.

[EnzoMartin]

Hm, I'm not sure what you're getting at?

The Link component react-router provides can be styled to look like react-toolbox's Link by importing the CSS class, they don't provide much of anything other than a small convenience so you wouldn't be gaining anything by using react-toolbox's Link

[drhayes]

Again: it's not about styling.

Here's a link to the handleClick method in react-router's Link component: https://github.com/rackt/react-router/blob/53623216560e34fbee02a99d926b5c69f163db35/modules/Link.js#L42

That method is calling a pushState method on a history object. That's the functionality that I'd like to take advantage of. If I can't pass react-router's Link component in to react-toolbox's Navigation component then my app refreshes the entire page to render a new view instead of doing an HTML5 history transition when using the Navigation component.

There's other functionality in react-router's Link that I'd like too. So I was hoping that react-toolbox's Navigator component could render its children under certain circumstances, like its Drawer component does:

react-toolbox/components/drawer/index.jsx

Line 14 in 0d5310d

{ props.children }

[javivelasco]

I see what you guys mean. @drhayes you can use a regular Link or React Toolbox's with react router routing. You just need to wrap your component in a new one implementing History mixin from React Router. Check this as an example.

Anyway we should give the user the ability to define content in a navigation with children but notice that it would be kind of a silly component since is not giving too much styling. We will allow it though, I'm going to label the issue as an enhancement to do so.

Thanks! :)

[drhayes]

Ah, okay! Yeah, you're both right, I see that now. Yeah, the History mixin is what I'm looking for... except I'm using ES6, but I'll maybe make an exception for this component.

Thanks for sticking with me and helping me get it through my thick skull. :)

[javivelasco]

No problem @drhayes!
Let's keep it open to remember adding children to the navigation component!

[javivelasco]

Actually @drhayes it's possible to give children to a navigation component. Try in the playground:

const NavigationTest = () => (
 <Navigation type='horizontal'>
   <Button label='Action 1' />
   <Button label='Action 2' />
 </Navigation>
);

[BerndWessels]

Hi @javivelasco @drhayes
I ran into the same problem and can't quite see how you solved it.
Can you give an example here how to use the react-router Link with react-toolbox styling for it please?
Thanks
Bernd

[BerndWessels]

OK, no worries. I found the perfect solution.

The react-bootstrap guys had the same issue and someone wrote a LinkContainer component that solves the problem.

And these react-router-bootstrap LinkContainer and IndexLinkContainer components also work great with react-toolbox Link components.

Here is the project for everybody who has the same issue.

Cheers
Bernd