Dynamic Route Navigation In Laravel

All Laravel routes are defined in your route files, which are located in the routes directory. These files are automatically loaded by your application's App\Providers\RouteServiceProvider.

Laravel’s name() method helps us to easily check if the current request matches a specific route name. This is very useful for things like analytics, active navigation styling, or permission checks—without writing repetitive conditions all over your app.

if ($request->route()->named('dashboard')) {
    // We're on the dashboard
}

Today through this medium post we will learn how we can create a dynamic route navigation using those feature which are provided by the laravel.

Here’s a practical example implementing dynamic navigation states:

<?php
 
namespace App\View\Components;
 
use Illuminate\View\Component;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
 
class NavigationMenu extends Component
{
    public function __construct(private Request $request)
    {
    }
 
    public function isActive(string $routeName): bool
    {
        return $this->request->route()->named($routeName);
    }
 
    public function isActiveSection(string $section): bool
    {
        return $this->request->route()->named("$section.*");
    }
 
    public function render()
    {
        return view('components.navigation-menu', [
            'sections' => [
                'dashboard' => [
                    'label' => 'Dashboard',
                    'route' => 'dashboard',
                    'active' => $this->isActive('dashboard')
                ],
                'users' => [
                    'label' => 'Users Lists',
                    'route' => 'users.index',
                    'active' => $this->isActiveSection('users')
                ],
                'settings' => [
                    'label' => 'Settings',
                    'route' => 'settings.index',
                    'active' => $this->isActiveSection('settings')
                ]
            ]
        ]);
    }
}

When used in your application, the navigation component automatically detects the current route and updates accordingly:

<!-- nav.blade.php -->
<nav>
    @foreach($sections as $key => $section)
        <a href="{{ route($section['route']) }}"
           @class(['nav-link', 'active' => $section['active']])>
            {{ $section['label'] }}
        </a>
    @endforeach
</nav>

In this way, the named method simplifies route-based logic, making your code more maintainable and reducing the complexity of route-dependent features.

I hope you find some of this helpful or learned something by reading this 🙌. At the very least, I enjoyed coming up with examples and writing this, so I’ll take that as a win 🎉.