# Routing issues 2.3.7

**URL:** <https://forums.bitovi.com/t/routing-issues-2-3-7/89>\
**Category:** CanJS\
**Created:** [December 28, 2015, 11:12am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/routing-issues-2-3-7/89 "2015-12-28T11:12:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![eben\_roux](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forums.bitovi.com/eben_roux/32/380_2.png) [@eben\_roux](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/eben_roux)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 11:12am UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/routing-issues-2-3-7/89/1 "2015-12-28T11:12:43Z")

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I spent the morning pulling my hair out trying to get my routing working after downloading the latest version (2.3.7) in order to use the ($event) event binding. For the life of me I could not get the following route hit:

```
Vision.Controls.Dashboard = can.Control.extend({
    "route": function() {
        // this would hit (depending on below explanation)
        window.location.hash = '#!dashboard';
    },
    "dashboard route": function () {
        // this would just never get hit
    }
});

```

I had a template defined as follows:

`can.route(':page');`

Turns out that _that_ doesn’t get the job done but his does (notice the trailing /):

`can.route(':page/');`

In addition to that I had included the `can.route.pushstate` plug-in and that seems to break the routing and I don’t know if that is the intended behaviour. You can simply add the pushstate plug-in to [this jsfiddle](http://jsfiddle.net/air_hadoken/5maLu/1/) to “break” it.

It is quite confusing and frustrating trying to sort out things that appear quite simple 🙂

If I am doing something wrong or missing something please let me know.

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**Author:** ![justinbmeyer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forums.bitovi.com/justinbmeyer/32/179_2.png) [@justinbmeyer](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/justinbmeyer)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/routing-issues-2-3-7/89/2 "2015-12-28T17:56:05Z")

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Control based routing should be avoided. I’m working on cleaning up references to it right now. Where are you learning this technique?

Routing should be based around state. The reasons are talked about here: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25776037/routing-conventions-in-can-js/25776652#25776652](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25776037/routing-conventions-in-can-js/25776652#25776652)

As far as actually mapping that state to custom elements, the best way of doing that is like this:

http://jsbin.com/surokag/embed?html,js,output

Here’s some more info on it: [http://canjs.com/guides/Tutorial.html#routing](http://canjs.com/guides/Tutorial.html#routing)

The `pushstate` plugin is for using pushstate APIs like here: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History\_API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History_API)

If you want simple hash-based routing, do not include that plugin.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![justinbmeyer](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forums.bitovi.com/justinbmeyer/32/179_2.png) [@justinbmeyer](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/justinbmeyer)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/routing-issues-2-3-7/89/3 "2015-12-28T17:57:50Z")

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Oh, read this recent article for a good start : [http://blog.bitovi.com/routing-in-canjs/](http://blog.bitovi.com/routing-in-canjs/)

It shows pushstate, but applies to hashchange based routing.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eben\_roux](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forums.bitovi.com/eben_roux/32/380_2.png) [@eben\_roux](https://forums.bitovi.com/u/eben_roux)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://forums.bitovi.com/t/routing-issues-2-3-7/89/4 "2015-12-28T18:44:13Z")

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Thanks for all the links Justin. I’ll have a look.

To answer your question about where I saw the technique: [http://canjs.com/docs/can.Control.route.html](http://canjs.com/docs/can.Control.route.html)

I refactor as I go along but after a quick look at one or two links I already have some other ideas. I just need some large scale permissions-based routing. So all components will not be in the same location, but a mapping of sorts with an associated required permission will do. Some routes may not need permissions at all and may not require the user to be logged in.

Thanks for the pointers. I’ll steer clear of the control-based routing then 🙂