In Remix, you can easily build dynamic breadcrumbs based on your route hierarchy. This guide will take you through the process using the useMatches and handle features.
Remix provides access to all route matches and related data at the top of the React element tree. This enables components like <Meta />, <Links />, and <Scripts /> to obtain values from nested routes and render them at the top of the document.
You can use a similar strategy using the useMatches and handle functions. While we're focusing on breadcrumbs, the principles demonstrated here are applicable to a range of scenarios.
Start by adding a breadcrumb attribute to your route's handle. This attribute isn't specific to Remix – you can name it whatever you like. For our example, we'll call it breadcrumb.
export const handle = {
breadcrumb: () => <Link to="/parent">Some Route</Link>,
};
Similarly, you can define breadcrumbs for child routes:
export const handle = {
breadcrumb: () => (
<Link to="/parent/child">Child Route</Link>
),
};
Now, bring everything together in your root route using useMatches:
import {
Links,
Scripts,
useLoaderData,
useMatches,
} from "@remix-run/react";
export default function Root() {
const matches = useMatches();
return (
<html lang="en">
<head>
<Links />
</head>
<body>
<header>
<ol>
{matches
.filter(
(match) =>
match.handle && match.handle.breadcrumb
)
.map((match, index) => (
<li key={index}>
{match.handle.breadcrumb(match)}
</li>
))}
</ol>
</header>
<Outlet />
</body>
</html>
);
}
Note that we pass the match object to breadcrumbs, allowing us to potentially utilize match.data for enhancing breadcrumb content based on the route's data. This example doesn't use it, but you'll likely want to use values from your loader data for the breadcrumb.
Using useMatches with handle offers a robust way for routes to contribute to rendering processes higher up the element tree than their actual render point.
