Navigation Model
Glide Apps and Glide Pages have different navigation models. In other words, the way screens relate to each other is slightly different.
Understanding the different navigation models is not needed for you to build with either of them, but it's helpful if you want to understand their deeper structure.
Apps
In Apps, the navigation model is based on screens on top of screens.
For example, we can see three different screens in the image below. When we navigate through these screens (Home → Profile → Talks) in our app, it looks and feels like we are moving from one screen to another, which – visually speaking – we are.
But in terms of the way the app works – we are actually 'pushing' screens on top of the initial tab's screen. In other words – they stack on top of each other, so the first screen is always the primary context – no matter how many screens deep we go.
You can see that all of the screens are 'on top' of the Home tab in the last image below. This is a much more accurate way to think about how screens work in Apps.
This is a lot more obvious with modals in tablet view 👇
On the surface, this distinction doesn't matter too much. When you use Glide Apps in browsers, the URL for a Glide App remains the same – regardless of which screen you are on (unless you're working with Deep Links).
This means that the browser forward & back buttons do not work as you would expect, there is no 'History' of screens that you've seen in your browsing history, and you cannot simply copy the URL and link to a particular page (again, unless you're working with Deep Links)
Pages
With Pages, however, there is only ever one screen. You don't have screens on top of screens.
Each screen also has its own URL. This means that you can use your browser's forward & back buttons to move forward or back to the previous screen – even if that screen was a modal.
This is incredibly useful if you want to link to a particular state or screen – you can just save the URL and give it to someone, and they will open the app exactly where you were when you copied the link.
There are some instances where the URL can become very long. For example, if you have many links to screen actions in your app and you've navigated through many of them, the URL will build up, remembering all the different steps. This is unusual and not a massive problem if it does happen.
However, if you switch to a different tab, the URL will reset to the new root screen.
Last updated
