Routing (go_router)

Navigation within the web dashboard is managed by the powerful go_router package. This provides a robust, URL-based routing system that is essential for a web application.

Our routing configuration is centralized in the lib/router/ directory.

StatefulShellRoute for Persistent Navigation

The main dashboard interface, which includes the top app bar and the side navigation rail, is built using a StatefulShellRoute. This is a specialized route type from go_router that is perfect for creating scaffolded UI with persistent navigation.

It allows us to define several independent navigation “branches,” one for each of our main sections:

• Dashboard
• Content Management
• App Configuration

When a user navigates between these sections, StatefulShellRoute preserves the state of each branch, including the scroll position and any nested navigation.

Authentication and Redirects

The router is tightly integrated with the AppBloc to handle authentication-based redirects automatically.

• The GoRouter is configured with a refreshListenable that listens to changes in the authentication status from the AppBloc.
• A redirect function checks the user’s authentication status on every navigation change.
  • If an unauthenticated user tries to access any page other than the sign-in page, they are automatically redirected to /authentication.
  • If an authenticated user tries to access the sign-in page, they are automatically redirected to the main /dashboard.

This ensures that the application’s routes are always protected and that users are guided to the correct screen based on their session status.

Named Routes

To prevent the use of hardcoded URL strings and to make navigation more maintainable, we use named routes. All route paths and names are defined as constants in the lib/router/routes.dart file.

When navigating, we use methods like context.goNamed('routeName') instead of context.go('/some/path'). This makes the code cleaner and less prone to errors if a URL path needs to be changed in the future.