What / Why is Alnilam?

It's a fork of react-router-dom in TypeScript. You can find the differences to RR 5.0 here.

Motivations:

1. No more split between core library and dom. This makes the whole thing a lot easier to understand.
2. No more react native support. A necessity of point one, but also motivated by the low download count of RR native.
3. Streamlining: Removing MemoryRouter, HashRouter, BrowserRouter. Those just wrapped <Router>.
4. Break things the original can't because it would require major releases:
   • Dropping exports
   • Upping the minimum react version.
   • Changing key behaviors (like Route)
5. Port the entire thing to typescript.
6. Break from some minor decisions made for RR.

Ultimately, it's more about the learning experience. It's my first dabble with a library, typescript and publishing something on NPM. Alnilam also serves as my testbed for contributions back to RR.

Acknowlegdements

Thanks to all original contributors of React-Router.

Getting started:

You can find the documenation here.

npm i alnilam

// Minimal example using the browser history API.
import { Router, Switch, Route } from "alnilam";
import { createBrowserHistory } from "verlauf";

const myHistory = createBrowserHistory(/* consult the history documentation for your options here*/);

function MyRouter() {
  return (
    /* Setting up the router itself. */
    <Router history={myHistory}>
      {/* Switch will only render the first matching route: */}
      <Switch>
        {/* Defining the individual routes: */}
        <Route path="/" exact >
          <div> Epsilon Orionis </div>
        </Route>
        <Route path="/alnitak" >
          <div> Zeta Orionis </div>
        </Route>
        <Route path="/mintaka" >
          <div> Delta Orionis </div>
        </Route>
        <Route path="/ran" >
          <div> Home of Bill. </div>
        </Route>
      </Switch>
    </Router>
  );
}

Here is a a small example app made with Alnilam. It shows:

• Nested routes
• Basic use of <Match>, <Route>, <Link>, and <Switch>
• Use of parameters in route declarations

TODO for 1.0

• [x] Outline (or implement) API changes and refactorings for future work.
  • [x] Document the API differences properly in a separate document.
• [ ] Figure out proper typing for withRouter()

Why is it called "Alnilam"?

Alnilam is a star that was used in celestial navigation. It's one of the stars in Orions belt - which happens to be my favorite constellation - and it's official designation is Epsilon Orionis. I'm also a fan of contrived package names ;-)