[Feature]: Allow a specific route to be the index route, and keep its path instead of the blank path

[slk333]

What is the new or updated feature that you are suggesting?

Currently, the component that serve as the index route is either

• a temporary and generic component such as Please select a tab,
• or a redirecting component to a specific sub-section, such as users
• or directly the specific component users from who we remove its natural path because we set it as the index route.

Instead of losing the path information, we want to keep it. For example if we display the <Users> as the index, we want to keep the users path.

Not only it is logical for this section to keep its path, but the Navlinks that point to it can now keep the users path instead of pointing to a empty path.

Current Redirect workaround:

<Route path="dashboard" element={<Dashboard />}>
    <Route index element={<Navigate to="users" replace={true} />} />
    <Route path="users" element={<Users />} />
    <Route path="sales" element={<Sales />} />
    <Route path="*" element={<div>404</div>} />
</Route>

Why should this feature be included?

The current workarounds are not satisfying:

• Do a programmatic Navigate to the sub-section from the index route. But this triggers severals renders, and on the first render, the Navlink that matches the sub-section is not considered as active. Only after the redirect, the navlink is considered as active.
• Have a generic index route that says " Please pick a tab ", instead of linking directly to the wanted sub-section
• Put the sub-section route as the index, but as a result the sub-section loses its name. For example, the sub-section users now has no path and the Navlink to the users sub-section now must point to an empty path `` instead of users.

[slk333]

As a sidenote, can you indicate if the code snippet is the current best way to display a specific sub-route, aka the redirect way?
I don't see the point of displaying a bland "Please pick a tab" just because the index route does not support having a specific URL

[slk333]

Just to be more clear, and as a consequence of being both a concrete route and also the index:

• The route would match both the empty path (as the index) and its own path users
• The Navlink that points to the users path would remain highlighted both while on the empty path and on the specific path users