vue-route-key

vue-route-key is a simple plugin for restart component when change route params and query.

Features

• Restart component when change route params and query
• Force restart current component

Why?

First, Let's assume that you have a /profile/:id and component call an api from created(). If you navigate from /profile/1 to /profile/2, vue-router does not call created(). Because it reuses a current component instead of restart and calls beforeRouteUpdate.

I found some solutions:

1. Use a watch: Is this the best way?
2. <router-view :key="$route.fullPath"/>: Very simple and effective. But if you have nested routing, all components are restart. I want to restart a nested component only.

Second, If there is a link to the forum on the nav, people expect that page showing new contents when they click the link. But nothing happens when they click the link. Because vue-router blocks navigate to same location.

That is why I made this plugin.

How it works?

This plugin consists of three parts.

• Override vue-router: Override the push and relace of vue-router to ignore duplicated error when using force update.
• Router hook: This is the core part. It collects params and query information from components matched with current routing, generate a unique key value that can be used in <router-view>.
• Mixin: This mixin inject the unique key value to component with the name $routeKey. It also serves force update feature.

The $routeKey used as :key attribute's value in <route-view>. The component restart by changes of $routeKey.

<router-view :key="$routeKey[0]" />

Usage

Install

npm install --save vue-route-key

Setup

main.js

import Vue from 'vue';
import VueRouter from 'vue-router';
import VueRouteKey from 'vue-route-key';

const router = new VueRouter(/* ... */);

Vue.use(VueRouteKey, {
    router, // Install plugin after create a router.
    canIncrKey(depth = 0) { // (optional) determine force update
        return true;
    }
}); 

App.vue

<router-view :key="$routerKey[0]" /> 
<!-- 
    append the :key="$routerKey[0]" in <router-view>.
    Adjust the index according to the nested level.
-->

Restart component by changes of params and query.

Component.vue

<script>
export default {
    // ...
    routeKey: [ // Type params and query you want to restart component if they changed.
        'params.paramName',
        'params.otherParam',
        'query.queryName',
        'query.otherQuery'
    ]
    // ...
}
</script>

Force update

You can force update by params._forceUpdateIndex sets depth of nested route-view.

this.$router.push({
    name: 'page', 
    params: {
        _forceUpdate: true, // Deprecated
        _forceUpdateDepth: 0,
    }
});

<router-link :to="{name: 'page', params: {_forceUpdateDepth: 0}}">link</router-link>

NOTE If canIncrKey() returns false, force update will be canceled.

DEMO

• With vue-route-key
• Without vue-route-key