Flutter Web - Fix Refresh & Back button Problem

Update Notice!!!

The explaination below is somewhat outdated. Now, I recommends you to use go_router, a routing package using Flutter Navigation 2.0!

Intro

When I’m on a flutter web, I faced with routing issue. Both MaterialApp and GetMaterialApp had the same issues, which was routing acts weird when browser’s back button and refresh button are clicked. So I’ve tried some test project with flutter web and I found the solution. Now, it works just like native web project. I’d like to share this solution with you.

Flutter Navigation 2.0

There is this thing called Flutter Navigation 2.0 . I didn’t dig much about it, but to simply put, it’s navigation system is now more customizable with this Navigation 2.0.

Since the original routing system had so many problems in web platform, I had to try this one. And it worked, thankfully. You can use with MaterialApp.router instead of just MaterialApp . But if you do that you need to implement some override method which involves in navigation logic. Instead overriding each methods, I used GetMaterialApp.router which comes with default methods, and therefore, only extra thing to do is just build method.

Code Implementation

Install Getx

At this moment, I used below version of Getx package.

dependencies:
  ...
  get: ^4.6.1

Basic Routing Stuff

For convenience, I used simple routing path and getPages with snippet.

abstract class Routes {
  static const HOME = '/';
  static const LOGIN = '/login';
  static const SIGNUP = '/signup';
}

abstract class AppPages {
  static final pages = [
    GetPage(
      name: Routes.HOME,
      page: () => Home(),
    ),
    GetPage(
      name: Routes.LOGIN,
      page: () => Login(),
    ),
    GetPage(
      name: Routes.SIGNUP,
      page: () => Signup(),
    ),
  ];
}

Create GetMaterialApp.router

When you use GetMaterialApp.router instead of just GetMaterialApp , you don’t need to provide(and you can’t) initialRoute . But you need to provide getPages and routerDelegate fields with values.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:get/get.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(GetMaterialApp.router(
    debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false,
    defaultTransition: Transition.fade,
    getPages: AppPages.pages,
    routerDelegate: AppRouterDelegate(),
  ));
}

Create Sample Pages

For testing, I created some simple test pages with different background colors.

• Note that when you navigate between pages, you need to use Get.rootDelegate instead of Get because we’re using routerDelegate to handle routing.

class Home extends StatelessWidget {
  const Home({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Container(
      color: Colors.red,
      child: TextButton(
        child: Text(
          'Home',
          style: TextStyle(color: Colors.white),
        ),
        onPressed: () => Get.rootDelegate.toNamed(Routes.LOGIN),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class Login extends StatelessWidget {
  const Login({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Container(
      color: Colors.orange,
      child: TextButton(
        child: Text(
          'Login',
          style: TextStyle(color: Colors.white),
        ),
        onPressed: () => Get.rootDelegate.toNamed(Routes.SIGNUP),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class Signup extends StatelessWidget {
  const Signup({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Container(
      color: Colors.blue,
      child: TextButton(
        child: Text(
          'Signup',
          style: TextStyle(color: Colors.white),
        ),
        onPressed: () => Get.rootDelegate.toNamed(Routes.HOME),
      ),
    );
  }
}

Create router delegate with GetDelegate

So, this is the main part.

• Create AppRouterDelegate or what ever you like to call with GetDelegate extended.
• Override build method and return Navigator with onPopPage and pages .
  • onPopPage → This is invoked when pop action happened, and return wheather pop is successful or not. If you don’t want to block pop action, just leave it there with default code.
  • pages → This is different from getPages . This is more related to what page to show in current moment. I’m not fully figured out yet, but it’s also different from navigation history stack. So, in order to show the right page according to current url, I used currentConfiguration.currentPage . Note that this field can’t be empty since it related to current view. When currentConfiguration is null(which means first entered the page), you can just simply return initial page.

class AppRouterDelegate extends GetDelegate {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Navigator(
      onPopPage: (route, result) => route.didPop(result),
      pages: currentConfiguration != null
          ? [currentConfiguration!.currentPage!]
          : [GetNavConfig.fromRoute(Routes.HOME)!.currentPage!],
    );
  }
}

And plus, since you can write build method and other override method(if you want to customize login) you can easily add user authentication status check before navigate to any page.

Conclusion

I think Flutter Web has a long way to go, but I’m glad Flutter is keeping up there work! I hope this article can help those who struggles with Flutter Web routing issue.

Cheers!