As described above, the route object calls a sequence of functions, starting with beforeModel. This function is a good place to check the state of the application before retrieving data. It is also a good place to reroute a user who cannot be on a page, such as to check for user authentication.

You will use beforeModel to unconditionally transition the user to a new page. The IndexRoute is a good place to do this. You may want to add a dashboard in the future, but for now the landing page will be sightings.

In app/routes/index.js, add a beforeModel callback:

import Ember from 'ember';

export default Ember.Route.extend({
  beforeModel(){
    this.transitionTo('sightings');
  }
});

Now, when you navigate to http://​localhost:4200/ the URL changes to http://​localhost:4200/​sightings, and you should see the sightings list from app/templates/sightings/index.hbs.

The last two routing hooks, afterModel and setupController, will not be used in Tracker. When creating a route file, you are cloning the Ember.Route object and overwriting the method, much like an interface in languages like Java. The setupController hook will run by default to set the model property on the route object’s controller.

At this point, your application has some basic routes that outline its functionality: a landing page, a list of sightings, and a route for adding a new sighting. You created templates for your routes and added model data to the sightings route. You rerouted the index route to the sightings index. You are off to a great start!

In the next chapter, you will learn about Ember.Models, adapters, computed properties, and storage mechanisms.