Cannot Navigate to Nested/Child Route using parent named router outlet

Question

I previously used ui-router in AngularJS then Angular 2+. I would like to move to the @angular/router simply because it seems to be more supported and more libraries built on it (ui-router-ng2 is still in beta!!)

My problem is that I am using a main template that has named route outlets because the main template has a static header and footer that is reused. (there is also a sidebar which i took out for brevity)

My problem is that once I get into my '/mainDashboard' router I am having trouble navigating from that route into the next nested/child route '/otherDashboard' whilst trying to use the named router outlet in the main template 'content'

How should I be navigating to my route in the thirteenth line of my code below. There is also a plunker https://plnkr.co/edit/RErIiby535x0toaA02W4?p=preview

Here is my code

import { NgModule, Component } from '@angular/core';
import { RouterModule, Router } from '@angular/router';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-home',
  template: '<button (click)="go()">Go To Other Dashboard</button>'
})
export class HomeComponent {
  constructor( public router: Router ) {}
  go(){ 
    //THIS ERRORS
    this.router.navigate(['../dashboard',{outlets: {'content': ['../dashboard/mainDashboard/otherDashboard']}}]);
  }
}

@Component({
  selector: 'app-main-dashboard',
  template: `
    <header>My Static Header</header>
    <div id="main-container" class="main-background">
        <router-outlet name="content"></router-outlet>
    </div>
    <footer>My Static Footer</footer>
  `
})
export class MainDashboardComponent {
  constructor() {}
}

@Component({selector: 'app-login',template: '<button (click)="login()">Login</button>'})
export class LoginComponent {
    constructor(public router: Router) { };
    login(){
        this.router.navigate(['/dashboard',{outlets: {content: ['mainDashboard']}}]);
    }
}

@Component({selector: 'app-other-dashboard', template: '<h1>Hello Other Dashboard</h1>'})
export class OtherDashboardComponent{
  constructor() { }
}

export const routes: Array<any> = [
    {path: '',component: LoginComponent },
    {path: 'dashboard', component: MainDashboardComponent,
        children: [
            {path: 'mainDashboard',component: HomeComponent,outlet: 'content',
                children: [{path: 'otherDashboard',component: OtherDashboardComponent,  outlet: 'content'}]
            }
        ]
    }
]

    @Component({ selector: 'app-root', template: '<router-outlet></router-outlet>'})
    export class AppComponent {}

    @NgModule({
      declarations: [ AppComponent, LoginComponent, MainDashboardComponent, HomeComponent, OtherDashboardComponent],
      imports: [ BrowserModule, RouterModule.forRoot(routes) ],
      providers: [],
      bootstrap: [AppComponent],
    })
    export class AppModule { }

Answer 1

After playing with your plunker code I found out the issue. As your otherDashboard is child of mainDashboard it is expected to have the router outlet for otherDashboard inside mainDashboard. Once that is added I was able to navigate to otherDashboard using router.navigateByUrl So your HomeComponent will look like:

@Component({
  selector: 'app-home',
  template: '<button (click)="go()">Go To Other Dashboard</button><router-outlet name="content"></router-outlet>'
})
export class HomeComponent {
  constructor( public router: Router ) {}
  go(){ 
    //Error gone
    this.router.navigateByUrl('/dashboard/(content:mainDashboard/(content:otherDashboard))');
  }
}

If you want to replace the HomeComponent with OtherDashboardComponent in MainDashboardComponent itself then in both otherDashboard and mainDashboard should be children of same parent that is HomeComponent

Working code: https://plnkr.co/edit/jYOMNhbE3lX5UYmjS7qy?p=preview