From the course: Master React 19 and Next.js 16 with Hands-On Projects and Real-World Applications

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Layouts vs. old custom app component

Layouts vs. old custom app component

From the course: Master React 19 and Next.js 16 with Hands-On Projects and Real-World Applications

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Layouts vs. old custom app component

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Hello and welcome. In this session, I'm going to guide you through one of the most powerful features of the Next.js app router – layouts. We'll explore exactly what layouts are, see how they create a more intuitive and powerful system compared to the old underscore app.js file from the pages router, and learn how to use them to build clean, reusable, and maintainable user interfaces. By the end, you'll be able to confidently structure your applications with shared components like navigation bars and footers that persist across different pages. Let's begin by looking at the foundational file for our application's structure, layout.js. This is the root layout, and it's a special file in the app router. Think of it as the main shell that will wrap every single page in your application. Everything you place in this file, outside of the children expression, will be shared across all pages. If you've worked with older versions of Next.js, you might remember __app.js. That file used to wrap…

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