Ionic 5 Fallback Route

When building an Ionic 5 app, it's important to provide a fallback route in case a user navigates to a non-existent route. This can happen due to various reasons, such as mistyping the URL or clicking on a broken link. By setting a fallback route, we can ensure that the user is redirected to a valid page instead of seeing an error page.

Setting Up a Fallback Route

To set up a fallback route in Ionic 5, we need to import the RouterModule from @angular/router and define a wildcard route that matches any path. Here's an example:

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { RouterModule, Routes } from '@angular/router';
import { NotFoundPage } from './not-found/not-found.page';

const routes: Routes = [
  // other routes
  { path: '', redirectTo: '/home', pathMatch: 'full' },
  { path: '**', component: NotFoundPage },
];

@NgModule({
  imports: [RouterModule.forRoot(routes)],
  exports: [RouterModule],
})
export class AppRoutingModule {}

In the code above, we define a wildcard route that matches any path using the double asterisk (**) syntax. We then specify the component that should be displayed when this route is activated. In this example, we use a NotFoundPage component that we've defined elsewhere.

Creating a NotFoundPage Component

To create a NotFoundPage component, we can use the Ionic CLI to generate a new page. Here's the command:

ionic generate page not-found

This will create a new not-found page in the src/app directory. We can then customize this page as needed to provide a user-friendly message and/or navigation options.

Conclusion

By setting up a fallback route in Ionic 5, we can ensure that users are directed to a valid page if they navigate to a non-existent route. This can improve the user experience and reduce the likelihood of them leaving the app due to frustration.