Add a 404 page

And now we come to a nice easy step. All we need to do here is create a component to inform the user that the page can't be found and then use it in our <Root> component.

First create a new file in the components directory. Call it error.js and put this code in the file:

// File: /packages/my-first-theme/src/components/error.js
​
import React from "react"
import { connect } from "frontity"
​
const Error = ({ state }) => {
  return (
    <>
      <h2>404 Error</h2>
      <p>
        The path <em>{state.router.link}</em> cannot be found.
      </p>
    </>
  )
}
​
export default connect(Error)

It's not really necessary to connect the component to the state if you just want to display a simple error message, but here we want to show the path that resulted in the 404 error.

It remains for us to use it in our <Root> component. First we import the <Error> component, then we add it as the last item in our <Switch> component which selects what component to use depending on the first matching condition.

// File: /packages/my-first-theme/src/components/index.js
​
// ...
import Error from "./error"
​
// ...
;<Switch>
  <Loading when={data.isFetching} />
  <List when={data.isArchive} />
  <Page when={data.isPage} />
  <Post when={data.isPost} />
  <Page when={data.isDestinations} />
  <Error when={data.isError} />
</Switch>
// ...

And that's it! As we said earlier, this was a nice easy step. Now if you try navigating to a path that doesn't exist the <Error> component will display informing the user of the error.