Nesting routes with flutter

You can use the standard Navigator as nested, without any additional tricks.

All what you need, it is to assign a global key and specify the necessary parameters. And of course, you need to care about android back button behaviour.

The only thing you need to know is that the context for this navigator will not be global. It will lead to some specific points in working with it.

The following example is a bit more complicated, but it allows you to see how you can set the nested routes from outside and inside for the navigator widget. In example we call setState in root page for set new route by initRoute of NestedNavigator.

  import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

  void main() => runApp(App());

  class App extends StatelessWidget {
    // This widget is the root of your application.
    @override
    Widget build(BuildContext context) {
      return MaterialApp(
        title: 'Nested Routing Demo',
        home: HomePage(),
      );
    }
  }

  class HomePage extends StatefulWidget {
    @override
    _HomeState createState() => _HomeState();
  }

  class _HomeState extends State<HomePage> {
    final GlobalKey<NavigatorState> navigationKey = GlobalKey<NavigatorState>();

    @override
    Widget build(BuildContext context) {
      return Scaffold(
        appBar: AppBar(
          title: Text('Root App Bar'),
        ),
        body: Column(
          children: <Widget>[
            Container(
              height: 72,
              color: Colors.cyanAccent,
              padding: EdgeInsets.all(18),
              child: Row(
                mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
                crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.center,
                children: <Widget>[
                  Text('Change Inner Route: '),
                  RaisedButton(
                    onPressed: () {
                      while (navigationKey.currentState.canPop())
                        navigationKey.currentState.pop();
                    },
                    child: Text('to Root'),
                  ),
                ],
              ),
            ),
            Expanded(
              child: NestedNavigator(
                navigationKey: navigationKey,
                initialRoute: '/',
                routes: {
                  // default rout as '/' is necessary!
                  '/': (context) => PageOne(),
                  '/two': (context) => PageTwo(),
                  '/three': (context) => PageThree(),
                },
              ),
            ),
          ],
        ),
      );
    }
  }

  class NestedNavigator extends StatelessWidget {
    final GlobalKey<NavigatorState> navigationKey;
    final String initialRoute;
    final Map<String, WidgetBuilder> routes;

    NestedNavigator({
      @required this.navigationKey,
      @required this.initialRoute,
      @required this.routes,
    });

    @override
    Widget build(BuildContext context) {
      return WillPopScope(
        child: Navigator(
          key: navigationKey,
          initialRoute: initialRoute,
          onGenerateRoute: (RouteSettings routeSettings) {
            WidgetBuilder builder = routes[routeSettings.name];
            if (routeSettings.isInitialRoute) {
              return PageRouteBuilder(
                pageBuilder: (context, __, ___) => builder(context),
                settings: routeSettings,
              );
            } else {
              return MaterialPageRoute(
                builder: builder,
                settings: routeSettings,
              );
            }
          },
        ),
        onWillPop: () {
          if(navigationKey.currentState.canPop()) {
            navigationKey.currentState.pop();
            return Future<bool>.value(false);
          }
          return Future<bool>.value(true);
        },
      );
    }
  }

  class PageOne extends StatelessWidget {
    @override
    Widget build(BuildContext context) {
      return Scaffold(
        body: Center(
          child: Column(
            mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
            children: <Widget>[
              Text('Page One'),
              RaisedButton(
                onPressed: () {
                  Navigator.of(context).pushNamed('/two');
                },
                child: Text('to Page Two'),
              ),
            ],
          ),
        ),
      );
    }
  }

  class PageTwo extends StatelessWidget {
    @override
    Widget build(BuildContext context) {
      return Scaffold(
        body: Center(
          child: Column(
            mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
            children: <Widget>[
              Text('Page Two'),
              RaisedButton(
                onPressed: () {
                  Navigator.of(context).pushNamed('/three');
                },
                child: Text('go to next'),
              ),
              RaisedButton(
                onPressed: () {
                  Navigator.of(context).pop();
                },
                child: Text('go to back'),
              ),
            ],
          ),
        ),
      );
    }
  }

  class PageThree extends StatelessWidget {
    @override
    Widget build(BuildContext context) {
      return Scaffold(
        body: Center(
          child: Column(
            mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
            children: <Widget>[
              Text('Page Three'),
              RaisedButton(
                onPressed: () {
                  Navigator.of(context).pop();
                },
                child: Text('go to back'),
              ),
            ],
          ),
        ),
      );
    }
  }

You can find some additional information in the next article.

Unfortunately, you cannot navigate to same root widget without navigation stack, when you change only child. So, for avoiding root widget navigation(root widget duplication) you need to create custom navigate method, for example based on InheritedWidget. In which you will check new root route and if it not changed to call only child(nested) navigator.

So you need to separate your route to two parts: '/onboarding' for root navigator and '/plan' for nested navigator and process this data separately.

The pattern you are trying to build, even if reasonable, seems it cannot be represented out of the box with Flutter.

EDIT: The behavior you want to achieve requires the use of onGenerateRoute, however not yet (Jan'18) properly documented (doc). See @Darky answer to have an example. He proposes NestedRouteBuilder and NestedRoute implementations, filling the gap.

Using plain Navigator from a MaterialApp, routes and pages navigation (according to doc) have two main characteristics that deny what you want to achieve (at least directly). On one hand, the Navigator behaves as a stack, thus pushing and popping routes one on top of the next and so on, on the other routes are either full screen or modal - meaning they occupy the screen partially, but they inhibit the interaction with the widgets beneath. Being more explicit, your paradigm seems to require the simultaneous interaction with pages at different levels in stack - which cannot be done this way.

Moreover, it feels like the path paradigm is not only a hierarchy - general frame → specific subpage - but in first instance a representation of the stack in navigator. I myself got tricked, but it becomes clear reading this:

String initialRoute

final

The name of the first route to show.

By default, this defers to dart:ui.Window.defaultRouteName.

If this string contains any / characters, then the string is split on those characters and substrings from the start of the string up to each such character are, in turn, used as routes to push.

For example, if the route /stocks/HOOLI was used as the initialRoute, then the Navigator would push the following routes on startup: /, /stocks, /stocks/HOOLI. This enables deep linking while allowing the application to maintain a predictable route history.

A possible workaround, as it follows, is to exploit the pathname to instantiate the child widgets, keeping a state variable to know what to show:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() => runApp(new MyApp());

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new MaterialApp(
      title: 'Flutter Demo',
      theme: new ThemeData(
        primarySwatch: Colors.blue,
      ),
      home: new ActionPage(title: 'Flutter Demo Home Page'),
      routes: <String, WidgetBuilder>{
        '/action/plus': (BuildContext context) => new ActionPage(sub: 'plus'),
        '/action/minus': (BuildContext context) => new ActionPage(sub: 'minus'),
      },
    );
  }
}

class ActionPage extends StatefulWidget {
  ActionPage({Key key, this.title, this.sub = 'plus'}) : super(key: key);

  final String title, sub;

  int counter;

  final Map<String, dynamic> subroutes = {
    'plus': (BuildContext context, int count, dynamic setCount) =>
        new PlusSubPage(count, setCount),
    'minus': (BuildContext context, int count, dynamic setCount) =>
        new MinusSubPage(count, setCount),
  };

  @override
  ActionPageState createState() => new ActionPageState();
}

class ActionPageState extends State<ActionPage> {
  int _main_counter = 0;

  String subPageState;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    subPageState = widget.sub;
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new Scaffold(
        appBar: new AppBar(
          title: new Text('Testing subpages'),
          actions: <Widget>[
            new FlatButton(
                child: new Text('+1'),
                onPressed: () {
                  if (subPageState != 'plus') {
                    setState(() => subPageState = 'plus');
                    setState(() => null);
                  }
                }),
            new FlatButton(
                child: new Text('-1'),
                onPressed: () {
                  if (subPageState != 'minus') {
                    setState(() => subPageState = 'minus');
                    setState(() => null);
                  }
                }),
          ],
        ),
        body: widget.subroutes[subPageState](context, _main_counter, (count) {
          _main_counter = count;
        }));
  }
}

class PlusSubPage extends StatefulWidget {
  PlusSubPage(this.counter, this.setCount);
  final setCount;
  final int counter;
  @override
  _PlusSubPageState createState() => new _PlusSubPageState();
}

class _PlusSubPageState extends State<PlusSubPage> {
  int _counter = 0;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    _counter = widget.counter;
  }

  void _incrementCounter() {
    setState(() {
      _counter++;
      widget.setCount(_counter);
    });
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new Center(
      child: new Column(
        mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
        children: <Widget>[
          new IconButton(
            icon: const Icon(Icons.add),
            onPressed: _incrementCounter,
          ),
          new Text(
            'You have pushed the button this many times:',
          ),
          new Text(
            '$_counter',
            style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.display1,
          ),
        ],
      ),
    );
  }
}

class MinusSubPage extends StatefulWidget {
  MinusSubPage(this.counter, this.setCount);
  final setCount;
  final int counter;
  @override
  _MinusSubPageState createState() => new _MinusSubPageState();
}

class _MinusSubPageState extends State<MinusSubPage> {
  int _counter = 0;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    _counter = widget.counter;
  }

  void _decrementCounter() {
    setState(() {
      _counter--;
      widget.setCount(_counter);
    });
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new Center(
      child: new Column(
        mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.center,
        children: <Widget>[
          new IconButton(
            icon: const Icon(Icons.remove),
            onPressed: _decrementCounter,
          ),
          new Text(
            'You have pushed the button this many times:',
          ),
          new Text(
            '$_counter',
            style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.display1,
          ),
        ],
      ),
    );
  }
}

This, however, has no stack memory at lower level. In case you want to handle the sequence of subroutes widget - you can wrap the subroute container in a WillPopScope, defining there what it is supposed to be doing when user presses back button, and storing the sequence of the subroutes in a stack. However I don't feel like suggesting such a thing.

My final suggestion is to implement plain routes - without "levels" -, manage custom transitions to hide the change of "outer" layout and pass the data through pages or keep in a proper class providing you app state.

PS: check also Hero animations, they can provide you the continuity you look for between views.