Fix routing edge cases and clarify navigation behavior

[molefrog]

Fix routing edge cases found while reviewing all 27 open issues. Each issue's change has its own commit; existing hash-navigation defaults, URL decoding, and public navigation signatures are preserved.

Changes

• Link with asChild should forward props to its child element #536: Forward Link asChild attributes, styles, active classes, and React refs. Preserve omitted child props and Preact child refs; update both packages' types.
• Switch causes child routes to re-render on browser back/forward #556: Notify browser-location subscribers together so native Back/Forward cannot render a stale child route before its Switch updates. Also reproduces and resolves the overlapping-route case in wouter Switch matches less-specific Route for 1 render when using browser 'back' button #464.
• Changes in URL Structure Affecting Link Component and Search Parameters #473: Allow an explicit /route? to clear hash-router search parameters. /route still preserves them. This addresses query clearing, not the historical URL-format migration.
• useRoute in nested Router with basepath cannot match absolute path #244: Let useRoute("~/...") match against the full location inside nested bases. Relative patterns and regular expressions retain their behavior.
• Prevent "back button" navigation #452: Correct the documented scope of aroundNav: browser Back/Forward and low-level navigation bypass it.
• React's new <ViewTransition /> doesn't seem to work #559: Explain why the browser View Transitions recipe does not enable React <ViewTransition> animations.
• Custom parser to adapt URLPattern syntax fails #563: Specify the v6 dependency required by the strict-parser recipe; this does not add URLPattern support.
• Reduce bundle overhead from the fixes, and prepare Preact sources after each checkout in the size-limit workflow so both revisions are measured correctly.

Validation

• bun test --coverage: 243 passed, 1 existing skip, 0 failed; 100% line coverage (13 more tests than the baseline).
• bun run test-types, bun run lint, and the repository build script passed. Local lint reports four pre-existing warnings in ignored generated bundles.
• All eight size limits pass; React entry 2,341 B / 2,500 B, Preact entry 2,230 B / 2,500 B.
• Independent review found no remaining actionable issues.

The native-history fix was also checked in real Chrome against a failing control. New runtime regressions were demonstrated before their fixes. The parser recipe was executed with its documented dependency API.

Size optimization

Reuse Link's rest-props object, pass children directly to createElement, simplify the absolute-pattern check, and shorten browser event registration. These retain the new behavior while reducing bundle size. No limits, ignored dependencies, or measurement settings were relaxed.

Size-limit results in minified Brotli bytes:

Entry	Base branch	Before optimization	Final
React router	2,264	2,373	2,341
React browser location	522	565	555
React memory location	733	733	733
React hash location	718	720	720
Preact router	2,159	2,273	2,230
Preact browser location	457	507	488
Preact memory location	671	671	671
Preact hash location	640	645	645

The previous CI comparison reused generated Preact files from the PR when measuring the base branch. The size workflow now regenerates them after each checkout; the table uses independently prepared sources for every revision. The remaining increase pays for the new fixes, particularly grouped history notifications and absolute route matching.

Remaining issues reviewed

• App crashes on browser native back/forward button from project pages #565: Incomplete application/stack trace; cannot establish whether it shares Switch causes child routes to re-render on browser back/forward #556's cause.
• Breaks in preact 10.28.4 #560: Exact Preact 10.28.4 passes isolated browser and hash navigation; no application reproduction was supplied.
• <Link> doesn't work with hash activated #542: Basic hash links pass; the linked sandbox could not be retrieved.
• Navigate doesn't clear search params #528, Improper location decoding #493: Changing search-preservation defaults or URL decoding would alter existing contracts.
• Re-rendering the component for a source route after navigating to a destination route in a promise #506: React 17 promise navigation still reproduces and needs a separate batching solution.
• Avoiding race conditions when updating search #432: Cross-component search updates still race; a general fix needs shared synchronization and external-navigation handling.
• Different behavior of useLocation depends on base property #498, link not active for the current route #499: Base-relative navigation/matching usage rather than a confirmed defect.
• Feature Request: Support document.baseURI resolution #562, Links using ~ do not respect base #558, Support for URL Pattern API #552, Missing navigation history/back functionality #539, [feature request] access hash using default useLocation hook #517, Feature Request: Add matchRoutes Function #512, Support relative links #511, Handle Browser Back and Forward Buttons with Custom Page Transition #470, Support nested Switches #467, Feature request: scroll restoration #300: New routing/history/parser/scroll behavior or existing extension points; no additional bounded fix identified.

Documentation-only and partial fixes above intentionally do not claim to implement the broader requested features.

Fixes #536
Fixes #556
Fixes #244
Refs #464, #473, #452, #559, #563

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[github-actions]

size-limit report 📦

Path	Size
packages/wouter/src/index.js	2.29 KB (+3.41% 🔺)
packages/wouter/src/use-browser-location.js	555 B (+6.33% 🔺)
packages/wouter/src/memory-location.js	733 B (0%)
packages/wouter/src/use-hash-location.js	720 B (+0.28% 🔺)
packages/wouter-preact/src/index.js	2.18 KB (+3.29% 🔺)
packages/wouter-preact/src/use-browser-location.js	488 B (+6.79% 🔺)
packages/wouter-preact/src/use-hash-location.js	645 B (+0.79% 🔺)
packages/wouter-preact/src/memory-location.js	671 B (0%)