5. Redux-driven Navigation via Navigation Actions & State

Date: 2024-10-17

Status

Accepted

Context

Redux needs to integrate navigation inside it's state so we can properly navigate with coordinators. This approach reduces redundancy by centralizing navigation handling in BrowserViewControllerState, ensuring that coordinators manage navigation consistently even when destinations overlap across different states.

Decision

We will adopt the following Redux + Navigation integration pattern across Firefox iOS:

• Creation of a new NavigationBrowserAction type and a NavigationDestination enum to abstract navigation intents.
• Moving navigation handling out of HomepageState into a more global BrowserViewControllerState, reflecting that navigation is not specific to homepage.
• BrowserViewController now listens to state.navigationDestination and calls handleNavigation(to:) when non-nil.

These changes formalize a pattern: navigation is expressed as Redux state or actions (intents), not direct view controller calls inside reducers or view logic.

Consequences

Positive

• Separation of concerns: Navigation decisions are decoupled from views and view controllers; UI only responds to state changes.
• Consistency and reuse: Shared navigation destinations in browser-level state ensure uniform navigation behavior (e.g. “go to Pocket section” works from many places).
• Incremental adoption: Existing navigation can gradually be migrated to the new pattern as parts of the app adopt Redux navigation state.

Negative

• Partial legacy overlap: Some parts may still use Coordinators only, leading to hybrid models until full migration.
• This BrowserViewControllerState could get bloated.

References

• Code Proposal