How to manage group routes in next.js, and why is it important?

Nextjs

How to manage group routes in next.js, and why is it important?

Managing routes more efficiently in next.js.

Managing routes is difficult for large and midlevel projects and becomes more difficult as the project grows. Due to their complexity, project routes are also challenging to maintain.

Due to the large project, the developer can not identify where the x route is located.

Therefore, developers spend more time looking at and understanding project code to find routes. Some developers use the IDE inbuilt search method to find routes in the project, which is a time-consuming task for every developer.

The developer can not visually identify the x route’s location without debugging and searching the code.

Nextjs has excellent features that help developers locate routes visually without spending time on debugging.

For that, you can use the nextjs group route feature. It helps you manage and organize routes, especially for large and mid-level projects.

For a better understanding, follow the example of the midlevel nextjs app routes. It contains different routes for our project.

App/
├── Blog/
│   ├── Dashboard/
│   │   ├── Editor
│   │   ├── Pages
│   │   ├── Posts/
│   │   │   ├── Draft
│   │   │   ├── Published
│   │   │   └── Schedule
│   │   └── Profile/
│   │       └── Settings
│   ├── Posts
│   ├── Home
│   ├── Tag
│   ├── Categories
│   └── Reading
├── Services/
│   └── Dashboard/
│       ├── Notifications
│       ├── Profile/
│       │   └── Settings
│       └── ...
├── Abouts
├── Home
├── Marketing/
│   ├── Affiliate
│   └── Customer
├── Contact
├── Product
├── Docs
├── Status
├── Careers
└── Terms/
    ├── Service
    └── Privacy Policy

In this midlevel routing example, routes cannot be debugged visually. The project has two dashboard routes: one for the blog and the other for services.

When the project is large, it is not visually identifiable whether the dashboard route is associated with blogs or services.

The nextjs group route features not only manage your routes but also help divide them into different groups.

All the code is available on the GitHub repository.

Why group route is important?

Route groups are helpful for:

1. Organize your routes into different groups, e.g., Services, Blog, or Marketing, so developers can easily recognize them.
2. The group route also supports nested layouts to enhance the developer experience, app structure, and functionality. You can use nested layouts very easily using layout and template files.
3. Most importantly, group routes do not affect the URL path. For that, check out the following code example.

App
├── (Blog)
│   └── Blog
│       ├── about ---> app/blog/about
│       └── ...
└── (Services)
    └── Services
        ├── Dashboard  ---> app/services/dashboard
        └── ...

Nextjs does not include the (Blog) and (Services) in the URL.

How to use the group route in nextjs?

To create a group route in nextjs, wrap a folder’s name in parentheses: (folder Name)

Check out the following example of the nextjs Route Groups.

app
├── (Blog)
│   └── Blog
│       ├── Dashboard
│       │   ├── Editor
│       │   ├── Pages
│       │   ├── Posts
│       │   │   ├── Draft
│       │   │   ├── Published
│       │   │   └── Schedule
│       │   └── Profile
│       │       └── Settings
│       ├── Posts
│       ├── Home
│       ├── Tag
│       ├── Categories
│       └── Reading
├── (Services)
│   └── Services
│       └── Dashboard
│           ├── Notifications
│           ├── Profile
│           │   └── Settings
│           └── ...
├── Abouts
├── Home
├── (Marketing)
│   └── Marketing
│       ├── Affiliate
│       └── Customer
├── Contact
├── Product
├── Docs
├── Status
├── Careers
└── (Terms and conditions)
    └── Terms
        ├── Service
        └── Privacy Policy

How to create nested layouts with group route?

Route Groups help identify routes visually and add nested layout structure. With Route Groups, you can also use any layout, template, or not-found file.

To better understand, check the following nested layout example with the layout and template file.

(dashboard)
├── dashboard
│   ├── layout.tsx
│   ├── page.tsx
│   └── profile
│       ├── layout.tsx
│       └── page.tsx
├── dashboard2
│   └── page.tsx
├── layout.tsx
└── template.tsx

Conclusion

Nextjs group route feature is more useful and compulsorily for large and midlevel projects.

Developers can easily recognize the route structure without spending too much time.

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