React Router confusion

Question

New to react & react-router.

I'm trying to understand this example:

https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router/blob/1.0.x/docs/API.md#components-1

But this.props never contains main or sidebar. My code:

Main.js

ReactDOM.render(
    <Router>
      <Route path="/" component={App2}>
        <Route path="/" components={{main: Home, sidebar: HomeSidebar}}/>

      </Route>
    </Router>,
  document.getElementById('content')
);

App2.js

class App2 extends React.Component {
  render() {
    const {main, sidebar} = this.props;
    return (
        <div>
          <Menu inverted vertical fixed="left">
            {sidebar}
          </Menu>
          <Container className="main-container">
            {main}
          </Container>
        </div>
    );
  }
}

export default App2;

Home.js

import React from 'react';

class Home extends React.Component {

  render() {
    return (
      <div><h1>Home</h1></div>
    );
  }

}

export default Home;

HomeSidebar.js

class HomeSidebar extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <p>I'm a sidebar</p>
      </div>

    );
  }
}

export default HomeSidebar;

I'm using electron with react dev tools. Whenever I debug, this.props contains neither main nor sidebar. Any idea why this is happening?

I've also tried using an IndexRoute, but it seems to not support a components prop.

Other things I've tried

ReactDOM.render(
    <Router>
      <Route component={App2}>
        <Route path="/" components={{main: Home, sidebar: HomeSidebar}}/>
      </Route>
    </Router>,
  document.getElementById('content')
);

ReactDOM.render(
    <Router>
      <Route path="/" component={App2} components={{main: Home, sidebar: HomeSidebar}}>
        <Route path="admin" components={{main: Admin, sidebar: AdminSidebar}}/>
      </Route>
    </Router>,
  document.getElementById('content')
);

Answer 1

Looks like to have the components prop work you need use the <IndexRoute /> component instead of <Route />. In the react-router docs it mentions that IndexRoute has all of the same props as Route so doing

<IndexRoute components={{main: Main, side: Side}} />

works!

Full code:

React.render((
  <Router>
    <Route path="/" component={App} >
      <IndexRoute components={{main: Main, side: Side}}  />
    </Route>
  </Router>
), document.getElementById('app'))

Codepen: http://codepen.io/chmaltsp/pen/ZeLaPr?editors=001

Cheers!

Answer 2

If you're using the current version of react-router (v4.0.0), it looks like they did away with the components prop on Routes: https://reacttraining.com/react-router/web/api/Route

You can render Routes anywhere, and they even have a sidebar example where they do just that. They have one set of Route components to render the main components and another set of Route components for sidebars, but both come from a single route config to keep it DRY.

To translate that to your code, you could create a route config:

const routes = [
  { path: '/',
    sidebar: Sidebar
    main: Main
  }
];

Then in Main.js

ReactDOM.render(
    <Router>
      <Route component={App2}>
        {routes.map((route, index) => (
          <Route
            key={index}
            path={route.path}
            component={route.main}
          />
        ))}
      </Route>
    </Router>,
  document.getElementById('content')
);

Then in App2.js

class App2 extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
        <div>
          <Menu inverted vertical fixed="left">
            {routes.map((route, index) => (
              <Route
                key={index}
                path={route.path}
                component={route.sidebar}
              />
            ))}
          </Menu>
          <Container className="main-container">
            {this.props.children}
          </Container>
        </div>
    );
  }
}

export default App2;

Answer 3

The example from github was written 2 years ago (look here) and I'am not sure for which particular version it is related. And I'am not sure does it works now (because I am also new with react), but I know that you don't have use this approach to reach this aim, you can use separated component which will contains mainz and sidebar, here my example:

class App2 extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
        // Your Menu.
        // Your Container.
        <div>
          {this.props.children}
        </div>
    );
  }
}
class Home extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (<div><h1>Home</h1></div>);
  }

}
class HomeSidebar extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (<div><p>I am a sidebar</p></div>);
  }
}
class HomeWithSidebar extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
          <Home />
          <HomeSidebar />
      </div>
    );
  }
}   
ReactDOM.render(
    <Router history={browserHistory}>
      <Route path="/" component={App2}>
        <Route path="/a2" components={HomeWithSidebar} />
      </Route>
    </Router>,
  document.getElementById('content')
);

PS: Don't forget use <Router history={browserHistory}> in your example.
And use IndexRoute in your example or specify another, like /a2 in my example.