How to use Vue Router in Vue 2

Question

I'm learning Vue, and started of with the webpack template. The first thing I'm trying to do is to add support for Vue Router, but I've spent several hours on it now without being able to render a single route (I always end up with a blank page). Frustrating!

I simply want to have a single .vue file, acting as the layout file, into which different .vue files, acting as "pages", are rendered into. Can someone tell me how to do this, please? Here's my latest failed attempt:

main.js

import Vue from 'vue'
import VueRouter from 'vue-router'
import App from './App'
import Home from './components/Home'
import About from './components/About'

Vue.use(VueRouter)

const routes = [
    { path: '/', component: Home },
    { path: '/about', component: About }
]

const app = new Vue({
    router: new VueRouter({
        routes
    }),
    component: App
}).$mount('#app')

App.vue (the layout file)

<template>
    <div id="app">
        <h1>Hello App!</h1>
        <p>
            <router-link to="/">Go to Foo</router-link>
            <router-link to="/about">Go to Bar</router-link>
        </p>

        <router-view></router-view>

    </div>
</template>

<script>
    export default {
    }

</script>

<style scoped>

</style>

components/About.vue (almost identical to components/Home.vue)

<template>
    <div>
        <h1>About</h1>
        <p>This is the about page!</p>
    </div>
</template>

<script>
    export default {
    }
</script>

<style scoped>

</style>

Answer 1

I finally got it to work. The main.js file should be written like this:

import Vue from 'vue'
import VueRouter from 'vue-router'
import App from './App'
import Home from './pages/Home'
import About from './pages/About'

Vue.use(VueRouter)

const routes = [
    { path: '/', component: Home },
    { path: '/about', component: About }
]

const router = new VueRouter({
    routes
})

const app = new Vue({
    router,
    template: '<App />',
    components: {
        App
    }
}).$mount('#app')

I hope this saves hours of trouble for someone else.

EDIT

The following:

const app = new Vue({
    router,
    template: '<App />',
    components: {
        App
    }
}).$mount('#app')

can preferably be replaced with:

const app = new Vue({
    router,
    render: function(createElement){
        return createElement(App)
    }
}).$mount('#app')

Answer 2

I found out how to get main.js to call the index.js file in folder router and work with the routes defined there:

I had created my app via the VUE UI (with VUE 3.1 and CLI/3)

In the VUE UI there is an option to add plugins. I chose the router plugin (route) and it asked if I want to install a new route or install the framework. (You first need to install the framework...)

It then changed my main.js file to have the following: (the additions are marked with comments)

import Vue from 'vue'
import './plugins/axios'
import App from './App.vue'
import router from './router' // added by router plugin

Vue.config.productionTip = false

new Vue({
  router, // added by router plugin
  render: h => h(App)
}).$mount('#app')

It also added a new folder router and in it index.js with the code

import Vue from 'vue'
import VueRouter from 'vue-router'
// import Hello from '@/components/HelloWorld' // @pashute: I added this later...

Vue.use(VueRouter)

const routes = [
    // { 
    //    path: '/',
    //    name: 'Hello',
    //    component: Hello
    // }
]

// eslint-disable-next-line no-new
const router = new VueRouter({
   routes
})

export default router

It also installed the latest router package and added a link in the HelloWorld component to the router documentation.

By the way, notice the extra name: in the route definitions.