Routing and Navigation
SAPUI5 offers hash-based navigation, which allows you to build single-page apps where the navigation is done by changing the hash. In this way the browser does not have to reload the page; instead there is a callback to which the app and especially the affected view can react. A hash string is parsed and matched against patterns which will then inform the handlers (1).
NOTE: SAPUI5 uses Crossroads.js for parsing the hash and the Hasher framework for manipulating the hash.
In SAPUI5, navigation and routing is implemented using a “router” (sap.m.routing.Router or sap.ui.core.routing.Router) to forward the hash change and the data in the hash to one or more views of the app (2).
You use routes to notify your application that the hash has changed to a certain value. For each route, you define the pattern that can be used in the app implementation.
With targets, you define where a view or a component is loaded and where the view or component is shown on the UI. By referring to one or multiple targets in a route’s definition, you can load and show the views or components once the route’s pattern matches the current hash (3).
References
(1) SAP Help: Routing and Navigation
(2) SAP Help: Routing and Navigation
(3) UI5 Doc: Routing with Parameters