This is driving me crazy. When I try to use React Router's Link within a nested route, the link updates in the browser but the view isn't changing. Yet if I refresh the page to the link, it does. Somehow, the component isn't updating when it should (or at least that's the goal).
Here's what my links look like (prev/next-item are really vars):
For whatever reason, calling Link is not causing the component to remount which needs to happen in order to fetch the content for the new view. It does call componentDidUpdate, and I'm sure I could check for a url slug change and then trigger my ajax call/view update there, but it seems like this shouldn't be needed.
EDIT (more of the relevant code):
PortfolioDetail.js
import React, {Component} from 'react';
import { browserHistory } from 'react-router'
import {connect} from 'react-redux';
import Loader from '../components/common/loader';
import PortfolioItemDetail from '../components/portfolio-detail/portfolioItemDetail';
import * as portfolioActions from '../actions/portfolio';
export default class PortfolioDetail extends Component {
static readyOnActions(dispatch, params) {
// this action fires when rendering on the server then again with each componentDidMount.
// but not firing with Link...
return Promise.all([
dispatch(portfolioActions.fetchPortfolioDetailIfNeeded(params.slug))
]);
}
componentDidMount() {
// react-router Link is not causing this event to fire
const {dispatch, params} = this.props;
PortfolioDetail.readyOnActions(dispatch, params);
}
componentWillUnmount() {
// react-router Link is not causing this event to fire
this.props.dispatch(portfolioActions.resetPortfolioDetail());
}
renderPortfolioItemDetail(browserHistory) {
const {DetailReadyState, item} = this.props.portfolio;
if (DetailReadyState === 'WORK_DETAIL_FETCHING') {
return <Loader />;
} else if (DetailReadyState === 'WORK_DETAIL_FETCHED') {
return <PortfolioItemDetail />; // used to have this as this.props.children when the route was nested
} else if (DetailReadyState === 'WORK_DETAIL_FETCH_FAILED') {
browserHistory.push('/not-found');
}
}
render() {
return (
<div id="interior-page">
{this.renderPortfolioItemDetail(browserHistory)}
</div>
);
}
}
function mapStateToProps(state) {
return {
portfolio: state.portfolio
};
}
function mapDispatchToProps(dispatch) {
return {
dispatch: dispatch
}
}
export default connect(mapStateToProps, mapDispatchToProps)(PortfolioDetail);
In other words, for whatever reason when I use React Router Link to link to a page with the SAME PARENT COMPONENT, it doesn't fire componentWillUnMount/componentWillMount. So I'm having to manually trigger my actions. It does work as I expect whenever I link to Routes with a different parent component.
Maybe this is as designed, but it doesn't seem right and isn't intuitive. I've noticed that there are many similar questions on Stackoverflow about Link changing the url but not updating the page so I'm not the only one. If anyone has any insight on this I would still love to hear it!