docs: record the one statement of which view is active

It belongs beside the two rules that already keep the history stack and
the in-app back buttons agreeing, and for the same reason: a second
component-local idea of where the user is, is how they came to
disagree.

CLAUDE.md

@@ -952,6 +952,50 @@ kept beside it, because two stacks is precisely how a view's own back
 button and the phone's gesture come to disagree about what one press
 means.
 
+**And there is one statement of which view is active**, for the same
+reason: `popstate` calls `handleNavigate()` directly and dispatches no
+`navigate`, so the two nav components — which learned the active view
+from that event — kept highlighting the view the user had just *left*.
+`store/active-view-store.ts` is the shell saying where the user is, and
+both navs read it through `ActiveViewController` rather than holding an
+`activeView` of their own.
+
+Four things about it are load-bearing.
+
+**"Please go to X" and "the active view is now X" are different
+statements**, and only the first existed — dispatched from 28 call
+sites across 18 files. A re-dispatch from inside `handleNavigate` is
+not the fix and cannot be: that function is the `document` listener for
+`navigate`, so it is an infinite loop.
+
+**It is a store rather than an event, because a component that mounts
+after a navigation still has to know.** `bottom-nav`'s "More" drawer
+creates its `<app-sidebar>` on open, and that copy had heard no
+`navigate` at all — standing on Albums, the drawer opened highlighting
+Home. An event has no answer for a listener that was not there.
+
+**A detail view is not a view here**, so the destination it was opened
+from stays lit. `app-sidebar` did that by accident (it guarded on
+`navItems.some(...)`, so an unmatched name left its highlight alone)
+and `bottom-nav` had no such guard and so lit *nothing* — which is why
+one looked right and the other looked broken on the same screen.
+Whether a view is primary is the shell's fact: `view in VIEW_TAGS` is
+passed to `setView`, never re-derived, because a second copy of that
+list is a second thing to forget.
+
+**Nothing is lit until the shell has navigated.** The store starts
+empty rather than defaulting to `home`, which is what `app-sidebar`'s
+field used to do to match the landing view — a default that is correct
+only while `GetDefaultPage()` agrees with it.
+
+The assertion is `aria-current="page"`, in
+`e2e/specs/back-navigation.spec.ts`. That file existed throughout the
+bug, covered exactly these journeys, and asserted only
+`data-active-view` — the shell's own bookkeeping, which was right the
+whole way through — so it was green on the broken build. Same trap as
+`layout-overflow.spec.ts` and `page-header`: a spec named for the
+behaviour, measuring the plumbing.
+
 **A primary view is cached, not unmounted.** `index.ts` keeps every
 primary view in the DOM and toggles a `.view-hidden` class, because that
 is what preserves `scrollTop` across navigation — so

e2e/specs/back-navigation.spec.ts

@@ -15,12 +15,49 @@ import { test, expect } from '../support/fixtures.js';
  *
  * What it cannot answer is whether Android's *gesture* reaches the
  * WebView, which is between the OS and the scaffold.
+ *
+ * **And `data-active-view` is not the behaviour.** Every assertion here
+ * used to be that attribute, which the shell sets on every path
+ * including `_isBack` — so this file was green throughout #72, in
+ * which both navs highlighted the view the user had just *left*. The
+ * shell's own bookkeeping was the one thing that was already right;
+ * what a person sees is `aria-current`, and that is asserted below as
+ * well. This is the same trap `layout-overflow.spec.ts` set for #69: a
+ * spec named for the behaviour, measuring the plumbing.
  */
 type Page = import('@playwright/test').Page;
 
 const activeView = (page: Page) =>
   page.getByTestId('main-content');
 
+/** A common phone, where the bottom bar is the primary navigation. */
+const PHONE = { width: 390, height: 844 };
+
+/**
+ * The nav item for a destination, in whichever navigation is on screen.
+ *
+ * Both navs carry a button named `Albums`, and only one of them is ever
+ * in the accessibility tree — the other is `display: none` — so the
+ * role query resolves to the one the user can see at this viewport.
+ * That is the point: the highlight has to be right in both, and #72 was
+ * two different-looking symptoms of one cause.
+ */
+const navItem = (page: Page, label: string) =>
+  page.getByRole('button', { name: label, exact: true });
+
+/**
+ * `aria-current="page"` is the accessible fact and the assertion worth
+ * making; `.active` is a class and could be restyled without breaking
+ * anything real.
+ */
+async function expectHighlighted(page: Page, label: string): Promise<void> {
+  await expect(navItem(page, label)).toHaveAttribute('aria-current', 'page');
+}
+
+async function expectNotHighlighted(page: Page, label: string): Promise<void> {
+  await expect(navItem(page, label)).toHaveAttribute('aria-current', 'false');
+}
+
 /**
  * Open an artist's detail view, which is the deepest ordinary route.
  *
@@ -71,6 +108,105 @@ test.describe('the back gesture', () => {
     await expect(activeView(app)).toHaveAttribute('data-active-view', 'albums');
   });
 
+  test('leaves the nav highlighting the view it landed on, not the one it left', async ({
+    app,
+  }) => {
+    await app.getByTestId('nav-albums').click();
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Albums');
+
+    await app.getByTestId('nav-tracks').click();
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Tracks');
+
+    await app.goBack();
+
+    // #72, and the half of it the report did not describe: this is
+    // desktop, and before the shell published the active view *both*
+    // navs stayed on Tracks. An absent highlight reads as a glitch; a
+    // confident wrong one is worse, and any back across two primary
+    // views produced it.
+    await expect(activeView(app)).toHaveAttribute('data-active-view', 'albums');
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Albums');
+    await expectNotHighlighted(app, 'Tracks');
+  });
+
+  test('keeps the parent destination lit while a detail view is open', async ({
+    app,
+  }) => {
+    await app.getByTestId('nav-artists').click();
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Artists');
+
+    await openAnArtist(app);
+
+    // A detail view is not a destination in either nav, and the user is
+    // still inside Artists. `app-sidebar` did this by accident -- it
+    // guarded on its own item list, so an unmatched name left the
+    // highlight alone -- and that accident is why the sidebar looked
+    // right on a detail view while the tab bar lit nothing. This test
+    // therefore passed before the fix and is here to keep the rule from
+    // being lost while the others are made to pass; the *tab bar's*
+    // half of it is the phone test below, which did not.
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Artists');
+
+    await app.goBack();
+
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Artists');
+  });
+
+  test('the tab bar survives the same journey on a phone', async ({ app }) => {
+    await app.setViewportSize(PHONE);
+
+    // The reported shape: Albums, open an album, press back. The tab
+    // bar had a highlight, then no highlight at all, and never got it
+    // back — `bottom-nav` took the detail view's name, matched it
+    // against no tab, and lit nothing.
+    await navItem(app, 'Albums').click();
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Albums');
+
+    await app.locator('cover-grid').getByText('Glass Harbour').first().click();
+    await expect(activeView(app)).toHaveAttribute(
+      'data-active-view',
+      'explore-album-details',
+    );
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Albums');
+
+    await app.goBack();
+
+    await expect(activeView(app)).toHaveAttribute('data-active-view', 'albums');
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Albums');
+  });
+
+  test('the drawer sidebar opens on the page you are standing on', async ({
+    app,
+  }) => {
+    await app.setViewportSize(PHONE);
+
+    await navItem(app, 'Tracks').click();
+    await expectHighlighted(app, 'Tracks');
+
+    // A third symptom of the same cause, found while measuring #72 and
+    // not in the report: `bottom-nav` mounts its `<app-sidebar>` when
+    // the drawer opens, so that copy had heard no `navigate` at all and
+    // showed its own default — Home, from any page in the app. An event
+    // has no answer for a listener that was not there; a store does.
+    await navItem(app, 'More').click();
+
+    // The element carrying the testid is the `wa-drawer` host, which
+    // always reports hidden -- what is visible is the `<dialog>` in its
+    // shadow root -- so the drawer being open is asserted of the
+    // sidebar it holds rather than of itself.
+    const drawer = app.getByTestId('nav-drawer');
+
+    await expect(drawer.locator('app-sidebar')).toBeVisible();
+    await expect(drawer.getByTestId('nav-tracks')).toHaveAttribute(
+      'aria-current',
+      'page',
+    );
+    await expect(drawer.getByTestId('nav-home')).toHaveAttribute(
+      'aria-current',
+      'false',
+    );
+  });
+
   test('an in-app back button consumes exactly one entry', async ({ app }) => {
     await app.getByTestId('nav-tracks').click();
     await openAnArtist(app);

frontend/index.ts

@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ import { setBasePath } from '@awesome.me/webawesome/dist/webawesome.js';
 import { registerBundledIcons } from './src/icons';
 import { queueStore } from '@store/queue-store';
 import { searchStore } from '@store/search-store';
+import { activeViewStore } from '@store/active-view-store';
 import * as Player from '@go/player/player.js';
 import * as Queue from '@go/queue/queue.js';
 import { GetDefaultPage } from '@go/config/config.js';
@@ -279,6 +280,20 @@ async function handleNavigate(
     // attribute keeps e2e selectors semantic instead of structural.
     mainContent.dataset.activeView = view;
 
+    // And publishing it as a *value* is what the nav components read.
+    // They used to learn the active view from the `navigate` event,
+    // which only the outbound path dispatches -- so a back-navigation
+    // left both of them highlighting the view it had just left (#72).
+    // Re-dispatching `navigate` here is not the fix: this file is a
+    // document listener for it, so that is an infinite loop, and
+    // "please go to X" is not the statement being made.
+    //
+    // `view in VIEW_TAGS` is the primary/detail split, and it is passed
+    // rather than re-derived because this table is where it is written
+    // down.  A detail view therefore leaves the tab it was opened from
+    // lit, which is what the report asks for.
+    activeViewStore.setView(view, view in VIEW_TAGS);
+
     // --- Primary (cacheable) views ----------------------------------------
     if (view in VIEW_TAGS) {
         // Remove any active detail view first

frontend/src/components/bottom-nav/bottom-nav.ts

@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ import { designTokens } from '../../styles/tokens.css';
 import '../sidebar/app-sidebar.js';
 import { nameDialog } from '@utils/name-dialog';
 import { ICON_PLAYLIST } from '@utils/icon-language';
+import { ActiveViewController } from '@store/controllers/active-view-controller';
 
 type View = 'home' | 'albums' | 'tracks' | 'playlists';
 
@@ -114,8 +115,19 @@ export class BottomNav extends LitElement {
         }
     `];
 
-    @state()
-    private activeView = 'home';
+    /**
+     * Which tab is lit, read from the shell rather than tracked here.
+     *
+     * This was a `@state()` field set from the `navigate` event, which
+     * only the outbound path dispatches -- so backing out of a detail
+     * view left the highlight wherever it had been (#72). It had no
+     * equivalent of `app-sidebar`'s `navItems.some(...)` guard either,
+     * so a detail view set it to a name matching no tab and *nothing*
+     * was lit; that asymmetry is why one nav looked broken and the
+     * other looked fine. The store answers both: a detail view leaves
+     * the tab it was opened from lit, in both components.
+     */
+    private activeCtrl = new ActiveViewController(this);
 
     /**
      * Whether the drawer has been asked for.
@@ -167,12 +179,9 @@ export class BottomNav extends LitElement {
         nameDialog(this.drawer);
     }
 
-    private onGlobalNavigate = (e: Event) => {
-        const detail = (e as CustomEvent<{ view?: string }>).detail;
-
-        if (detail?.view) this.activeView = detail.view;
-
+    private onGlobalNavigate = () => {
         // A navigation from inside the drawer is the drawer's job done.
+        // The highlight is not this listener's business any more.
         this.drawerOpen = false;
     };
 
@@ -206,9 +215,11 @@ export class BottomNav extends LitElement {
                         <li>
                             <button
                                 type="button"
-                                class=${this.activeView === tab.id ? 'active' : ''}
+                                class=${this.activeCtrl.isActive(tab.id)
+                                    ? 'active'
+                                    : ''}
                                 data-testid="tab-${tab.id}"
-                                aria-current=${this.activeView === tab.id
+                                aria-current=${this.activeCtrl.isActive(tab.id)
                                     ? 'page'
                                     : 'false'}
                                 @click=${() => this.navigate(tab.id)}

frontend/src/components/sidebar/app-sidebar.ts

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import '@awesome.me/webawesome/dist/components/icon/icon.js';
 import { designTokens } from '../../styles/tokens.css';
 
 import type { DragActiveDetail } from '@utils/drag-controller';
+import { ActiveViewController } from '@store/controllers/active-view-controller';
 import {
     ICON_PLAYLIST,
     ICON_AUTOTAG,
@@ -159,11 +160,20 @@ export class AppSidebar extends LitElement {
     /** Delay in ms before a drag-hover triggers navigation. */
     private static readonly HOVER_NAV_DELAY = 600;
 
-    /** Home, because that is where `index.ts` now navigates on startup
-     *  (H-8). The sidebar does not hear a `navigate` it did not send,
-     *  so this default is what keeps `aria-current` honest on arrival. */
-    @state()
-    private activeView: View = 'home';
+    /**
+     * Which item is lit, read from the shell rather than tracked here.
+     *
+     * This used to be a `@state()` field defaulting to `home` -- the
+     * landing view -- because "the sidebar does not hear a `navigate`
+     * it did not send". That default was the only honest moment it
+     * ever had: a back-navigation dispatches no `navigate`, so the
+     * highlight stayed on the view the user had just left (#72), and
+     * the copy of this component that `bottom-nav` mounts inside its
+     * drawer opened on `home` from whatever page you were standing on.
+     * The shell publishes the active view now, so there is nothing to
+     * default and nothing to keep in step.
+     */
+    private activeCtrl = new ActiveViewController(this);
 
     @state()
     private isDragging = false;
@@ -237,10 +247,6 @@ export class AppSidebar extends LitElement {
             'yj-drag-active',
             this.onDragActive as EventListener,
         );
-        document.addEventListener(
-            'navigate',
-            this.onGlobalNavigate as EventListener,
-        );
     }
 
     override disconnectedCallback() {
@@ -262,10 +268,6 @@ export class AppSidebar extends LitElement {
             'yj-drag-active',
             this.onDragActive as EventListener,
         );
-        document.removeEventListener(
-            'navigate',
-            this.onGlobalNavigate as EventListener,
-        );
         this.clearDragHoverTimer();
     }
 
@@ -282,8 +284,9 @@ export class AppSidebar extends LitElement {
             <nav aria-label="Main">
             <ul>
                 ${this.navItems.map((item) => {
+            const active = this.activeCtrl.isActive(item.id);
             const classes = [
-                this.activeView === item.id
+                active
                     ? 'active'
                     : '',
                 this.dragHoverView === item.id
@@ -299,7 +302,7 @@ export class AppSidebar extends LitElement {
                                 type="button"
                                 class=${classes}
                                 data-testid="nav-${item.id}"
-                                aria-current=${this.activeView === item.id
+                                aria-current=${active
                     ? 'page'
                     : 'false'}
                                 @click=${() =>
@@ -382,19 +385,6 @@ export class AppSidebar extends LitElement {
     private static readonly DROP_VIEWS: Set<View> =
         new Set(['playlists']);
 
-    /** Keeps the highlighted nav item in sync with navigation that
-     * originates outside the sidebar itself (e.g. the launch-page
-     * dispatch in index.ts). */
-    private onGlobalNavigate = (
-        e: CustomEvent<{ view?: string }>,
-    ) => {
-        const view = e.detail.view;
-
-        if (view && this.navItems.some((item) => item.id === view)) {
-            this.activeView = view as View;
-        }
-    };
-
     private onDragActive = (
         e: CustomEvent<DragActiveDetail>,
     ) => {
@@ -460,7 +450,11 @@ export class AppSidebar extends LitElement {
     }
 
     private navigate(view: View) {
-        this.activeView = view;
+        // No optimistic highlight: the shell answers, and it answers
+        // synchronously in `handleNavigate` before it awaits anything.
+        // Setting it here as well is the second opinion this fix
+        // removes -- it is what let a click's highlight survive a
+        // navigation the shell then handled differently.
         this.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent('navigate', {
             detail: { view },
             bubbles: true,

frontend/src/store/active-view-store.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+/**
+ * Which primary view the app is showing.
+ *
+ * The shell has always known this -- `handleNavigate()` sets
+ * `#main-content`'s `data-active-view` on every path, `_isBack`
+ * included -- and never told anyone. The nav components learned it
+ * from the `navigate` CustomEvent instead, which only the *outbound*
+ * path dispatches: the `popstate` listener calls `handleNavigate()`
+ * directly. So both navs kept highlighting the view you had just left
+ * (#72).
+ *
+ * The fix cannot be a re-dispatch of `navigate`. `index.ts` is itself a
+ * document listener for it, so emitting one from inside
+ * `handleNavigate` is an infinite loop -- and the two statements are
+ * different anyway: `navigate` means *please go to X*, and 28 call
+ * sites across 18 files say it. This says *the active view is now X*,
+ * which only the shell is in a position to say and only once per
+ * navigation.
+ *
+ * Three things about it are load-bearing.
+ *
+ * **It is a store rather than an event**, because a component that
+ * mounts *after* a navigation still has to know. `bottom-nav`'s "More"
+ * drawer creates its `<app-sidebar>` on open, and that copy had heard
+ * no `navigate` at all: standing on Albums, the drawer highlighted
+ * Home -- its `activeView` default, which existed to match the landing
+ * view and matched nothing else ever after. An event has no answer for
+ * a listener that was not there; a value does.
+ *
+ * **A detail view is not a view here.** Opening one leaves the primary
+ * view it was opened from lit, which is what #72 asks for and what
+ * `app-sidebar` used to do by accident -- it guarded on
+ * `navItems.some(...)`, so a name matching no item left its highlight
+ * alone. `bottom-nav` had no such guard and so lit nothing on a detail
+ * view. Neither was correct; the sidebar was stale-but-lucky, and
+ * stating the rule once is what makes the two agree.
+ *
+ * **Whether a view is primary is the shell's fact, not this store's.**
+ * `VIEW_TAGS` in `index.ts` is the list, and a copy of it here is a
+ * second list to forget -- so the caller passes the answer it already
+ * has rather than this file re-deriving it.
+ */
+
+type Subscriber = () => void;
+
+class ActiveViewStore {
+    /** Empty until the shell's first navigation, which happens at
+     *  startup from `GetDefaultPage()`. Nothing is highlighted for that
+     *  moment, which is honest: the alternative is a written-down
+     *  default that is right only when the default page agrees with it. */
+    private activeView = '';
+
+    private subscribers = new Set<Subscriber>();
+
+    /** The active primary view, e.g. `albums`. */
+    get(): string {
+        return this.activeView;
+    }
+
+    isActive(view: string): boolean {
+        return this.activeView !== '' && this.activeView === view;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Called by the shell on every navigation, `popstate` included.
+     *
+     * `isPrimary` is `view in VIEW_TAGS` at the call site: a detail
+     * view reports itself and deliberately changes nothing, so the view
+     * it was opened from stays lit until the user picks another one.
+     */
+    setView(view: string, isPrimary: boolean): void {
+        if (!isPrimary) return;
+        if (view === this.activeView) return;
+
+        this.activeView = view;
+        this.notify();
+    }
+
+    subscribe(fn: Subscriber): () => void {
+        this.subscribers.add(fn);
+
+        return () => this.subscribers.delete(fn);
+    }
+
+    private notify(): void {
+        this.subscribers.forEach((fn) => fn());
+    }
+}
+
+export const activeViewStore = new ActiveViewStore();

frontend/src/store/controllers/active-view-controller.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+import type {
+    ReactiveController,
+    ReactiveControllerHost,
+} from 'lit';
+import { activeViewStore } from '../active-view-store';
+
+/**
+ * ActiveViewController connects a Lit component to the
+ * ActiveViewStore.
+ *
+ * Usage in a component:
+ *
+ *   private activeCtrl = new ActiveViewController(this);
+ *
+ *   render() {
+ *     const lit = this.activeCtrl.isActive('albums');
+ *   }
+ *
+ * It reads through to the store rather than copying the value into a
+ * `@state()` field, which is the point of #72: two components holding
+ * their own idea of the active view is what let them disagree with the
+ * shell and with each other.
+ */
+export class ActiveViewController implements ReactiveController {
+    private host: ReactiveControllerHost;
+    private unsubscribe?: () => void;
+
+    constructor(host: ReactiveControllerHost) {
+        this.host = host;
+        host.addController(this);
+    }
+
+    // ===============================================================
+    // LIFECYCLE HOOKS
+    // ===============================================================
+
+    hostConnected(): void {
+        this.unsubscribe = activeViewStore.subscribe(() => {
+            this.host.requestUpdate();
+        });
+    }
+
+    hostDisconnected(): void {
+        this.unsubscribe?.();
+    }
+
+    // ===============================================================
+    // DATA ACCESS
+    // ===============================================================
+
+    /** The active primary view, e.g. `albums`. */
+    get current(): string {
+        return activeViewStore.get();
+    }
+
+    isActive(view: string): boolean {
+        return activeViewStore.isActive(view);
+    }
+}

frontend/src/store/index.ts

@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ export type { ThemeState, BackgroundShade } from './theme-store';
 export { ThemeController } from './controllers/theme-controller';
 export { searchStore } from './search-store';
 export { SearchController } from './controllers/search-controller';
+export { activeViewStore } from './active-view-store';
+export { ActiveViewController } from './controllers/active-view-controller';
 export { shortcutsStore } from './shortcuts-store';
 export type { ShortcutsState } from './shortcuts-store';
 export { ShortcutsController } from './controllers/shortcuts-controller';

frontend/test/components/bottom-nav.test.ts

@@ -3,15 +3,21 @@
  *
  * Three of these are about the thing that makes a second nav dangerous:
  * it has to agree with the first one. `bottom-nav` emits the same
- * bubbling, composed `navigate` event `app-sidebar` does and listens
- * for that event globally, so a navigation from anywhere — a card, a
- * detail view, the drawer's own sidebar — moves its highlight too. A
- * tab bar that only tracks its own clicks looks right until the moment
- * the user arrives somewhere by another route.
+ * bubbling, composed `navigate` event `app-sidebar` does, and reads
+ * which tab is lit from `activeViewStore` — the shell's one statement
+ * of where the user is — so it follows a navigation from anywhere: a
+ * card, a detail view, the drawer's own sidebar, or the back gesture.
+ *
+ * That last one is why the source is the store and not the `navigate`
+ * event these tests used to dispatch. `popstate` dispatches no
+ * `navigate` (index.ts calls `handleNavigate` directly), so a tab bar
+ * listening for the event looked right until the user pressed back —
+ * #72.
  */
 import { describe, expect, it, beforeEach } from 'vitest';
 
 import '@components/bottom-nav/bottom-nav';
+import { activeViewStore } from '@store/active-view-store';
 import type { BottomNav } from '@components/bottom-nav/bottom-nav';
 import { fixture, shadow, shadowAll, update } from '@test/support/render';
 import { resetHarness } from '@test/support/harness';
@@ -21,6 +27,12 @@ type Nav = BottomNav;
 const tabs = (el: HTMLElement) =>
   shadowAll<HTMLButtonElement>(el, 'nav button');
 
+/** The testids of whatever the bar says is the current page. */
+const current = (el: HTMLElement) =>
+  tabs(el)
+    .filter((b) => b.getAttribute('aria-current') === 'page')
+    .map((b) => b.dataset.testid);
+
 /** Resolve on one occurrence of an event, or reject loudly on time. */
 const once = (el: Element, name: string, timeoutMs = 2000) =>
   new Promise<void>((resolve, reject) => {
@@ -70,36 +82,55 @@ describe('bottom-nav', () => {
   it('follows a navigation it did not send', async () => {
     const el = await fixture<Nav>('bottom-nav');
 
-    document.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent('navigate', {
-      detail: { view: 'tracks' },
-      bubbles: true,
-      composed: true,
-    }));
+    activeViewStore.setView('tracks', true);
     await update(el, {});
 
-    const current = tabs(el)
-      .filter((b) => b.getAttribute('aria-current') === 'page')
-      .map((b) => b.dataset.testid);
-
-    expect(current).toEqual(['tab-tracks']);
+    expect(current(el)).toEqual(['tab-tracks']);
   });
 
   it('marks exactly one tab current, and none for a view it has no tab for', async () => {
     const el = await fixture<Nav>('bottom-nav');
 
-    document.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent('navigate', {
-      detail: { view: 'settings' },
-      bubbles: true,
-      composed: true,
-    }));
+    activeViewStore.setView('settings', true);
     await update(el, {});
 
     // Settings lives in the drawer, so nothing in the bar is current.
     // Leaving Home highlighted would be a tab bar lying about where
     // the user is.
-    expect(
-      tabs(el).filter((b) => b.getAttribute('aria-current') === 'page'),
-    ).toHaveLength(0);
+    expect(current(el)).toEqual([]);
+  });
+
+  it('keeps the parent tab lit while a detail view is open', async () => {
+    const el = await fixture<Nav>('bottom-nav');
+
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+    // A detail view reports itself and is not primary, so it changes
+    // nothing. This is the first half of #72: the bar used to take the
+    // name, match it against no tab, and light nothing at all — while
+    // `app-sidebar`, which guarded on its own item list, kept the
+    // highlight. Neither was deliberate and the two disagreed.
+    activeViewStore.setView('explore-album-details', false);
+    await update(el, {});
+
+    expect(current(el)).toEqual(['tab-albums']);
+  });
+
+  it('follows the back path, which dispatches no navigate event', async () => {
+    const el = await fixture<Nav>('bottom-nav');
+
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+    activeViewStore.setView('tracks', true);
+    await update(el, {});
+    expect(current(el)).toEqual(['tab-tracks']);
+
+    // What `popstate` does: the shell replays the entry through
+    // `handleNavigate` without dispatching `navigate`. A bar listening
+    // for the event stayed on Tracks — the view just left, confidently
+    // wrong rather than merely blank.
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+    await update(el, {});
+
+    expect(current(el)).toEqual(['tab-albums']);
   });
 
   it('closes the drawer when a navigation happens', async () => {

frontend/test/components/chrome.test.ts

@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ import '@components/sidebar/app-sidebar';
 import '@components/library-filter/library-filter';
 import '@components/library-status-indicator/library-status-indicator';
 import { Events } from '../../src/events';
+import { activeViewStore } from '@store/active-view-store';
 import { emit, stub, flush, calls, lastArgs } from '@test/support/harness';
 import {
   fixture,
@@ -49,6 +50,8 @@ describe('<app-sidebar>', () => {
   });
 
   it('marks exactly one item as the current page', async () => {
+    activeViewStore.setView('home', true);
+
     const el = await fixture('app-sidebar');
 
     const current = shadowAll(el, 'li button').filter(
@@ -72,17 +75,49 @@ describe('<app-sidebar>', () => {
     expect(seen).toEqual(['artists']);
   });
 
-  it('moves aria-current to the clicked destination', async () => {
+  it('moves aria-current with the shell, not with the click', async () => {
+    activeViewStore.setView('home', true);
+
     const el = await fixture('app-sidebar');
 
     shadow<HTMLElement>(el, '[data-testid="nav-genres"]')?.click();
     await el.updateComplete;
 
+    // The click asks; it does not answer. The sidebar used to move its
+    // own highlight optimistically, which is the second opinion #72
+    // removed -- one component deciding where the user is, while the
+    // shell decided separately and `bottom-nav` decided a third way.
+    expect(
+      shadow(el, '[data-testid="nav-genres"]')?.getAttribute('aria-current'),
+    ).toBe('false');
+
+    // What the shell does with that event, in one line.
+    activeViewStore.setView('genres', true);
+    await update(el, {});
+
     expect(
       shadow(el, '[data-testid="nav-genres"]')?.getAttribute('aria-current'),
     ).toBe('page');
   });
 
+  it('follows the back path, which dispatches no navigate event', async () => {
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+
+    const el = await fixture('app-sidebar');
+
+    // `popstate` replays an entry through `handleNavigate` directly, so
+    // there is no `navigate` event to hear -- which is why the sidebar
+    // stayed on the view the user had just left (#72).
+    activeViewStore.setView('tracks', true);
+    await update(el, {});
+
+    expect(
+      shadowAll(el, 'li button')
+        .filter((item) => item.getAttribute('aria-current') === 'page')
+        .map((item) => item.getAttribute('data-testid')),
+    ).toEqual(['nav-tracks']);
+  });
+
   it('looks the way it did last time', async () => {
     const el = await fixture('app-sidebar');
 

frontend/test/stores/view-stores.test.ts

@@ -1,11 +1,13 @@
 /**
- * The three small stores behind view chrome: the global search term,
- * the track list's column set, and the explore cache that keeps detail
- * pages from re-fetching what a search already returned.
+ * The small stores behind view chrome: the global search term, the
+ * active view both navs highlight, the track list's column set, and
+ * the explore cache that keeps detail pages from re-fetching what a
+ * search already returned.
  */
 import { describe, expect, it, beforeEach } from 'vitest';
 
 import { searchStore } from '@store/search-store';
+import { activeViewStore } from '@store/active-view-store';
 import { trackListStore } from '@store/tracklist-store';
 import { exploreCache, ARTIST_IMAGE_CACHE_LIMIT } from '@store/explore-cache';
 import { Events } from '../../src/events';
@@ -80,6 +82,57 @@ describe('search store', () => {
   });
 });
 
+describe('active view store', () => {
+  beforeEach(() => {
+    activeViewStore.setView('home', true);
+  });
+
+  it('holds the primary view the shell navigated to', () => {
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+
+    expect(activeViewStore.get()).toBe('albums');
+    expect(activeViewStore.isActive('albums')).toBe(true);
+    expect(activeViewStore.isActive('tracks')).toBe(false);
+  });
+
+  it('leaves the primary view lit while a detail view is open', () => {
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+    activeViewStore.setView('explore-album-details', false);
+
+    // #72's third finding, made deliberate: a detail view is not a
+    // destination in either nav, and the tab it was opened from is
+    // where the user still is. `app-sidebar` did this by accident (it
+    // guarded on its own item list) and `bottom-nav` did not do it at
+    // all, which is why one looked right and the other looked broken.
+    expect(activeViewStore.get()).toBe('albums');
+  });
+
+  it('does not notify when the view is unchanged', () => {
+    let notifications = 0;
+    const off = activeViewStore.subscribe(() => {
+      notifications += 1;
+    });
+
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+    activeViewStore.setView('albums', true);
+    activeViewStore.setView('explore-album-details', false);
+    off();
+
+    expect(notifications).toBe(1);
+  });
+
+  it('lights nothing for a view with no name', () => {
+    // The store starts empty rather than defaulting to a view, because
+    // a written-down default is right only while `GetDefaultPage()`
+    // agrees with it. That is only safe if the empty value matches
+    // nothing: `isActive` compares strings, and a component asking
+    // about an id it does not have must not light up.
+    activeViewStore.setView('', true);
+
+    expect(activeViewStore.isActive('')).toBe(false);
+  });
+});
+
 describe('track list store', () => {
   it('starts from the default column set', () => {
     expect(trackListStore.getState().columnIds.length).toBeGreaterThan(0);