Navigate with named routes

In the Navigate to a new screen and back recipe, you learned how to navigate to a new screen by creating a new route and pushing it to the Navigator.

However, if you need to navigate to the same screen in many parts of your app, this approach can result in code duplication. The solution is to define a named route, and use the named route for navigation.

To work with named routes, use the Navigator.pushNamed() function. This example replicates the functionality from the original recipe, demonstrating how to use named routes using the following steps:

1. Create two screens.
2. Define the routes.
3. Navigate to the second screen using Navigator.pushNamed().
4. Return to the first screen using Navigator.pop().

1. Create two screens

First, create two screens to work with. The first screen contains a button that navigates to the second screen. The second screen contains a button that navigates back to the first.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

class FirstScreen extends StatelessWidget {
  const FirstScreen({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: const Text('First Screen'),
      ),
      body: Center(
        child: ElevatedButton(
          onPressed: () {
            // Navigate to the second screen when tapped.
          },
          child: const Text('Launch screen'),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class SecondScreen extends StatelessWidget {
  const SecondScreen({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: const Text('Second Screen'),
      ),
      body: Center(
        child: ElevatedButton(
          onPressed: () {
            // Navigate back to first screen when tapped.
          },
          child: const Text('Go back!'),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

2. Define the routes

Next, define the routes by providing additional properties to the MaterialApp constructor: the initialRoute and the routes themselves.

The initialRoute property defines which route the app should start with. The routes property defines the available named routes and the widgets to build when navigating to those routes.

MaterialApp(
  title: 'Named Routes Demo',
  // Start the app with the "/" named route. In this case, the app starts
  // on the FirstScreen widget.
  initialRoute: '/',
  routes: {
    // When navigating to the "/" route, build the FirstScreen widget.
    '/': (context) => const FirstScreen(),
    // When navigating to the "/second" route, build the SecondScreen widget.
    '/second': (context) => const SecondScreen(),
  },
)

3. Navigate to the second screen

With the widgets and routes in place, trigger navigation by using the Navigator.pushNamed() method. This tells Flutter to build the widget defined in the routes table and launch the screen.

In the build() method of the FirstScreen widget, update the onPressed() callback:

// Within the `FirstScreen` widget
onPressed: () {
  // Navigate to the second screen using a named route.
  Navigator.pushNamed(context, '/second');
}

4. Return to the first screen

To navigate back to the first screen, use the Navigator.pop() function.

// Within the SecondScreen widget
onPressed: () {
  // Navigate back to the first screen by popping the current route
  // off the stack.
  Navigator.pop(context);
}

Interactive example

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(
    MaterialApp(
      title: 'Named Routes Demo',
      // Start the app with the "/" named route. In this case, the app starts
      // on the FirstScreen widget.
      initialRoute: '/',
      routes: {
        // When navigating to the "/" route, build the FirstScreen widget.
        '/': (context) => const FirstScreen(),
        // When navigating to the "/second" route, build the SecondScreen widget.
        '/second': (context) => const SecondScreen(),
      },
    ),
  );
}

class FirstScreen extends StatelessWidget {
  const FirstScreen({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: const Text('First Screen'),
      ),
      body: Center(
        child: ElevatedButton(
          // Within the `FirstScreen` widget
          onPressed: () {
            // Navigate to the second screen using a named route.
            Navigator.pushNamed(context, '/second');
          },
          child: const Text('Launch screen'),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class SecondScreen extends StatelessWidget {
  const SecondScreen({Key? key}) : super(key: key);

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: const Text('Second Screen'),
      ),
      body: Center(
        child: ElevatedButton(
          // Within the SecondScreen widget
          onPressed: () {
            // Navigate back to the first screen by popping the current route
            // off the stack.
            Navigator.pop(context);
          },
          child: const Text('Go back!'),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}