iron:router Meteor how to change route (save state in history) without changing the url

Question

I am developing a meteor applicaton . For routing I am using iron:router . I am changing some templates by changing a session variable.

Is there any way that without changing the url the user gets an entry in the browser history, that with a browser back the session variable changes back?

My Problem is: Some beta testers tested the app and tried to close some overlays they opened with the browser back button.

Answer 1

I'm not sure I understand your question 100%. But it sounds like you want to set a session variable to a specific value based off of a specific route to control the state of an overlay?

If that's the case, your best bet would be to use an onBeforeAction hook.

Here's how you could do that with a Route Controller:

PostController = RouteController.extend({
  waitOn: function () {},

  data: function () {},

  onBeforeAction () {
    Session.set('someSession', 'someValue');
  },

  action: function () {
    this.render();
  }
}); 

If you don't want to use a Route Controller, you can also just add a hook function and specify a route for which the hook should run on.

Edit

Router.onBeforeAction(function () {
  Session.set('showOverlay', false);
  this.next();
});

You can also specify routes that you don't want this before hook on:

Router.onBeforeAction(function () {
  Session.set('showOverlay', false);
  this.next();
}, { except: ['admin'] });