Nuxt.js: isomorphic Vue.js made easy, fast and fun

http://bit.ly/ijs-nuxt

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Who am I?

David Guijarro

Web Chapter Lead at

SHARE NOW (formerly car2go)

Get in touch!
david.guijarro@share-now.com
twitter.com/davguij

What is                   ?

  • Opinionated Web framework
  • Built on top of Vue.js
    • Component-based
    • Single file components (SFC's)

What is                   ?

  • Codeless SSR & static site generation 🎉 
  • Codeless routing
  • Codeless state management
  • More codeless stuff...
  • Works out of the box, but still configurable!

When to use it?

  • Public websites
  • Fast first meaningful paint
  • SEO
  • Fully-transactional webapps

How to use it?

Content

Database, API...

Middleware

Transform

Cache

Nuxt.js

Browser

Android

iOS

Super cool device

Let's do this! 💪

Start the project! 🚀

  • Choose your UI framework
  • Choose your server-side framework
  • Choose your testing framework
  • Insta PWA
  • Linting

Building a new page

Page === route

/pages/*.vue ➠ 🧙‍♂️ ➠ routes

/pages/**/*.vue ➠ 🧙‍♂️ ➠ nested routes

_id.vue ➠ 🧙‍♂️ ➠ this.$route.params.id

Linking to new page

<nuxt-link to="/somewhere">Go somewhere</nuxt-link>

Comes with a surprise...

Codeless link prefetching!

Making the new page dynamic

Grab dynamic path parameters with

this.$route.params
// returns object with parameters

Use them directly in your markup

<h3>Selected language: {{$route.params.language}}</h3>

Making the new page dynamic

Use the asyncData lifecycle method and the path parameters to decide what to render on page initialization

const languages = new Map();
languages.set('english', 'Hello, iJS London 2019! So glad to be here!');

export default {
    asyncData({params}) {
        return {translatedGreeting: languages.get(params.language)};
    }
}

⚠️ 

  • "this" cannot be used inside "asyncData()" because the component is not yet instantiated
  • "asyncData()" is only available in "pages", not in child components

Custom <head>'s

nuxt.config.js

export default {
  // ...
  head: {
    titleTemplate: 'This is the global title',
    meta: [{
      hid: 'description',
      name: 'description',
      content: 'This is the global description'
    }]
  }
  // ...
}
export default {
  head() {
    return {
      title: 'Title for this page only',
      meta: [{
        hid: 'description', 
        name: 'description',
        content: 'Description for this page only'
      }]
    };
  }
}

Component override

More <head> goodies

  • Child components head() can override parents'
    • Avoided duplication thanks to 'hid' property
  • Any <head> element can be programmatically set
    • Canonical links
    • <html>'s "lang" attribute
    • Injected <script> tags...
    • <noscript>

Let's get interactive

Client-side hydration

Hydration refers to the client-side process during which the static HTML sent by the server turns it into dynamic DOM that can react to client-side data changes.

 

 

Static HTML ➠ Interactive SPA

Typical usecase

Server

Client

  • Markup and styling for first visited page
  • Interactivity on first visited page (including navigation)
  • Content for next pages

"window" is undefined 😱

  • Remember: same codebase for server and client
  • No window object or browser APIs in Node.js
<no-ssr placeholder="Loading...">
  <!-- this component will only be rendered on client-side -->
  <awesome-component />
</no-ssr>
// nuxt.config.js
export default {
  plugins: [
    { src: '~/plugins/both-sides.js' },
    { src: '~/plugins/client-only.js', mode: 'client' },
    { src: '~/plugins/server-only.js', mode: 'server' }
  ]
}

export default {
  methods: {
    clientOnlyMethod() {
      if (process.client) {
        window.something();
      }
      return;
    }
  }
}

{Experiment 💡} Lazy hydration

Goal: improve time-to-interactive

  • Several different "presentational" components in one page
  • Decide which ones to hydrate
  • Decide hydration order
  • Webpack code splitting + dynamic imports ❤️
npm i vue-lazy-hydration

State management

  • index.js ➠ 🧙‍♂️ ➠ root module
  • other JS files ➠ 🧙‍♂️ ➠ namespaced modules

⚠️  index.js is mandatory!

  • "fetch()" dispatches actions on server side
  • "asyncData()" is still useful for non-store, initial actions
  • Both can be used at the same time
  • Only in "pages", not in child components

asyncData() ➠ fetch()

⚠️ "this" cannot be used inside neither "asyncData()" nor "fetch()" because the component is not yet instantiated

  • Lifecycle method, only available inside "/store/index.js"
  • Populates the store once when server starts
  • Useful for loading configs, translations...

nuxtServerInit()

export const actions = {
  async nuxtServerInit({ dispatch }) {
    await dispatch('config/fetch');
  }
};

Awesome! What else?

nuxt.config.js

  • Sensible defaults (convention over configuration)...
  • ... but everything is configurable
    • env vars
    • router config
    • source directory 🧐
    • global styles
    • ...

Modules

  • Easily extend functionality
  • Both official and community-maintained

 

  1. Find desired module
  2. "npm-install" it
  3. Add it to "modules" in nuxt.config.js
  4. Enjoy!

http requests

  • Browsers can make library-less http requests, but Node.js servers can't (*)
  • @nuxt/http
    • Wraps ky-universal, which wraps ky
  • @nuxtjs/axios
    • Wraps axios
  • "create-nuxt-app" ➠ 🧙‍♂️

http requests (part 2)

  • Cross-domain requests only work on server-side running code
    • on asyncData() or fetch(), only on first page load
  • Solution?
// nuxt.config.js

module.exports = {
  modules: ['@nuxtjs/axios', '@nuxtjs/proxy'],
  proxy: {
    '/api': {
      target: 'http://example.com',
      pathRewrite: {
        '^/api': '/',
      },
    },
  },
};

Some more very cool modules

  • @nuxtjs/pwa
    • create-nuxt-app 🧙‍♂️
  • @nuxtjs/auth
  • @nuxtjs/component-cache
    • v-for lists!
  • @nuxtjs/google-tag-manager
  • @nuxtjs/ngrok
    • Expose localhost

Layouts

Layouts

  • Page "skeleton"
    • Header, footer, logo, grid...
  • "default" one
  • Can be multiple
    • Need <nuxt /> to render page
  • Page can define which one to use

Building custom layouts

default.vue

<template>
  <div>
    <header>
      <h1>Welcome</h1>
    </header>
    <main>
      <nuxt/>
    </main>
  </div>
</template>

with-header.vue

<template>
  <nuxt />
</template>

with-sidebar.vue

<template>
  <div>
    <main>
      <nuxt/>
    </main>
    <aside>
      <my-sidebar />
    </aside>
  </div>
</template>

Asigning custom layouts

one-page.vue

export default {
  layout: 'with-header'
  // ...
}

export default {
  layout: 'with-sidebar'
  // ...
}

another-page.vue

💁‍♂️ If no "layout" property, "default" is assumed

For free

but still customizable!

Loading indicator

// nuxt.config.js

export default {
  loading: '~/components/loading.vue'
}

Error pages

// pages/error.vue

<template>
  <div class="container">
    <h1 v-if="error.statusCode === 404">Page not found</h1>
    <h1 v-else>An error occurred</h1>
    <nuxt-link to="/">Home page</nuxt-link>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
export default {
  props: ['error'],
}
</script>

Navigation transitions

👇

Thank you! 🙏 💜 

Get in touch!
david.guijarro@share-now.com
twitter.com/davguij

https://slides.com/davguij/ijs-nuxtjs

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