Bring the router service to engines

Would be really cool, if we could bring the RouterService to engines as well. I propose keeping the exact same API, but adding an *External variant for all methods, just like we are doing with the route extension:

https://github.com/ember-engines/ember-engines/blob/ec4d1ae7a413a7e5d9e57a4e3b2e0f0d19a0afcd/addon/-private/route-ext.js#L14-L17

Implementing a proper RouterService for engines would also allow us to refactor the route-ext and also add the missing *External methods to Route and Controller for symmetry.

I’ve done a PoC service which I am using for my projects, but it would be great to have an official solution that does not rely on dirty hacks.

Links

• Ember API docs for RouterService
• RFC #95: Router Service
• PoC implementation using some private API

[buschtoens]

@villander No worries, I understood you right the first time. ☺️

The idea behind engines is to encapsulate a part of the application from the rest. Any references / dependencies to the host app should be explicit and declarative. This is why services are explicitly injected into the engine. The same goes for routes (externalRoutes).

Allowing users to transitionToExternal by URL would break with that principle. The fully qualified URL can only be known by the host app. This detail should thus not be exposed to / accessible by the engine. The engine only knows about the externalRoutes names.

The need to transition by URL from inside an engine is an indicator for a leaky engine that is not fully encapsulated. Imagine it this way: You should be able to take that engine and drop it into any other app and be able to run it, as long as the expected external services and externalRoutes were passed into the engine.

If you still, for whatever reason, need to trigger a transition by URL from inside the engine, you can pass the host app’s “real” router service into the engine as external-router and call transitionTo on it directly.

[buschtoens]

PSA for anyone subscribed to this issue: @SergeAstapov has submitted RFC 819 “Public router service”, which makes the RouterService available to engines in accordance with #691 “Merge internal and external route namespace, drop *External methods & <LinkToExternal>”.