Vue 3 Mutate Composition API state from external script - vue.js

Forewords
In Option API, I was able to directly mutate instance data properties without losing any of reactivity. As described in here.
If you ask why, well not everything is written in Vue and there're cases where external JS libraries have to change certain value inside Vue instance.
For example:
document.app = createApp({
components: {
MyComponent, //MyComponent is a Option API
}
})
//Somewhere else
<MyComponent ref="foo"/>
Then component state can be mutated as follow:
//Console:
document.app.$refs.foo.$data.message = "Hello world"
With the help of ref, regardless of component hiarchy, the state mutating process is kept simple as that.
Question
Now in Composition API, I want to achieve the same thing, with setup script if it's possible.
When I do console.log(document.app.$refs), I just only get undefined as returned result.
So let's say I have MyComponent:
<template>
{{message}}
<template>
<script setup>
const message = ref('Hello world');
</script>
How to mutate this child component state from external script? And via a ref preferably, if it's easier

Refs that are exposed from setup function are automatically unwrapped, so a ref can't be changed as a property on component instance.
In order for a ref to be exposed to the outside, this needs to be explicitly done:
setup(props, ctx) {
const message = ref('Hello world');
ctx.expose({ message });
return { message };
}
This is different in case of script setup because variables are exposed on a template but not component instance. As the documentation states:
An exception here is that components using are private by default: a parent component referencing a child component using won't be able to access anything unless the child component chooses to expose a public interface using the defineExpose macro
It should be:
<script setup>
...
const message = ref('Hello world');
defineExpose({ message });
</script>

Related

How to access refs from app instance in Vue3

In Vue2 it was possible to access refs from the vue instance like so:
vm.$refs.someRef
How can I achieve this in Vue3? Access the refs from outside the app instance i.e from js code.
If you are using options API, it's the same. If you want to use composition API, you pass a ref to the template. It gets a little confusing because there are two different refs one is the attribute in the template (ref="myref") and the other is the function const myref = ref(null)
When used in the template, the ref value gets updated and can be then accessed via myref.value
from https://gitlab.com/mt55/maintegrity-fim-web-interface-server/-/jobs/3293032688/artifacts/download
<script setup>
import { ref, onMounted } from 'vue'
// declare a ref to hold the element reference
// the name must match template ref value
const input = ref(null)
onMounted(() => {
input.value.focus()
})
</script>
<template>
<input ref="input" />
</template>
If the ref is needed from outside of the app, it can be accessed through the instance with:
const app=createApp(App)
app._instance?.refs
however that only works if the ref is in the App component. For every other component, while the ref is available somewhere in the app object, traversing through the structure is much more complicated.

How to make provide/inject reactive in Vue 3 to avoid props drilling?

I have a root component that has a lot of descendants. In order to avoid props drilling, I want to use provide/inject.
In the root component in the setup function, I use provide.
In the child component in the setup function, I get the value via inject.
Then the child component might emit an event, that forces the root component to reload data that it provides to the child components.
However, the data in the child component is not changed.
Previous answers that I found usually were related to Vue 2, and I'm struggling with Vue 3 composition API.
I tried to use watch/watchEffect, and "re-provide" the data, but it didn't work (and I'm not sure if it's a good solution).
Sample code: https://codesandbox.io/s/mystifying-diffie-e3eqyq
I don't want to be that guy, but read the docs!
Anyway:
App.vue
setup() {
let randomNumber = ref(Math.random());
function updateRandomNumber() {
randomNumber.value = Math.random()
}
// This should be an AJAX call to re-configurate all the children
// components. All of them needs some kind of config.
// How to "re-provide" the data after a child component asked this?
provide("randomNumber", {
randomNumber,
updateRandomNumber
});
},
ChildComponent.vue
<template>
<div>Child component</div>
<button #click="updateRandomNumber">Ask root component for re-init</button>
<div>Injected data: {{ randomNumber }}</div>
</template>
<script>
import { inject } from "vue";
export default {
setup() {
// How to "re-inject" the data from parent?
const {randomNumber, updateRandomNumber} = inject("randomNumber");
return {
randomNumber,
updateRandomNumber
};
},
};
</script>

Find nearest parent Vue component of template ref (Vue 3)

When a Vue template ref is mounted, I want to get the nearest parent Vue component. This should be generic and work for any template ref so I've put it in a composition function (but that's just an implementation detail).
I had this working but my implementation used elem.__vueParentComponent while iteratively searching an element's ancestors. While reading the Vue source code I saw __vueParentComponent was only enabled for dev mode or if dev tools is enabled in production. Thus, I don't want to rely on that flag being enabled.
I thought this might be possible using vnodes but this isn't easily google-able. Here's an example of what I'm trying to do:
function useNearestParentInstance(templateRef) {
function getNearestParentInstance(el) {
// code here
}
onMounted(() => {
const el = templateRef.value;
const instance = getNearestParentInstance(el);
// do something with instance
});
}
<template>
<div>
<SomeComponent>
<div>
<div ref="myElem"></div>
</div>
</SomeComponent>
</div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
setup() {
const myElem = ref();
// nearest would be SomeComponent's instance in this case
useNearestParentInstance(myElem);
...
}
}
</script>
If you want the nearest vue parent you can simply use
ref().$parent // Not sure if syntax is same in vue3
ref().$parent will get the first vuecomponent that is the parent of the ref that you placed.

Access the component name from a Vue directive

I want to create a custom Vue directive that lets me select components on my page which I want to hydrate. In other words, this is what I want to archive
I render my Vue app on the server (ssr)
I attach a directive to some components, like this:
<template>
<div v-hydrate #click="do-something"> I will be hydrated</div>
</template>
I send my code to the client and only those components that have the v-hydrate property will be hydrated (as root elements) on the client.
I want to achieve this roughly this way:
I will create a directives that marks and remembers components:
import Vue from "vue";
Vue.directive("hydrate", {
inserted: function(el, binding, vnode) {
el.setAttribute("data-hydration-component", vnode.component.name);
}
});
My idea is that in my inserted method write a data-attribute to the server-rendered element that I can read out in the client and then hydrate my component with.
Now I have 2 questions:
Is that a feasible approach
How do I get the component name in el.setAttribute? vnode.component.name is just dummy code and does not exist this way.
PS: If you want to know why I only want to hydrate parts of my website: It's ads. They mess with the DOM which breaks Vue.
I could figure it out:
import Vue from "vue";
Vue.directive("hydrate", {
inserted: function(el, binding, vnode) {
console.log(vnode.context.$options.name); // the component's name
}
});
I couldn't get the name of my single file components using the previously posted solution, so I had a look at the source code of vue devtools that always manages to find the name. Here's how they do it:
export function getComponentName (options) {
const name = options.name || options._componentTag
if (name) {
return name
}
const file = options.__file // injected by vue-loader
if (file) {
return classify(basename(file, '.vue'))
}
}
where options === $vm.$options

VueJS access child component's data from parent

I'm using the vue-cli scaffold for webpack
My Vue component structure/heirarchy currently looks like the following:
App
PDF Template
Background
Dynamic Template Image
Static Template Image
Markdown
At the app level, I want a vuejs component method that can aggregate all of the child component's data into a single JSON object that can be sent off to the server.
Is there a way to access child component's data? Specifically, multiple layers deep?
If not, what is the best practice for passing down oberservable data/parameters, so that when it's modified by child components I have access to the new values? I'm trying to avoid hard dependencies between components, so as of right now, the only thing passed using component attributes are initialization values.
UPDATE:
Solid answers. Resources I found helpful after reviewing both answers:
Vuex and when to use it
Vuex alternative solution for smaller apps
In my child component, there are no buttons to emit changed data. It's a form with somewhat 5~10 inputs. the data will be submitted once you click the process button in another component. so, I can't emit every property when it's changing.
So, what I did,
In my parent component, I can access child's data from "ref"
e.g
<markdown ref="markdowndetails"></markdown>
<app-button #submit="process"></app-button>
// js
methods:{
process: function(){
// items is defined object inside data()
var markdowns = this.$refs.markdowndetails.items
}
}
Note: If you do this all over the application I suggest move to vuex instead.
For this kind of structure It's good to have some kind of Store.
VueJS provide solution for that, and It's called Vuex.If you are not ready to go with Vuex, you can create your own simple store.
Let's try with this
MarkdownStore.js
export default {
data: {
items: []
},
// Methods that you need, for e.g fetching data from server etc.
fetchData() {
// fetch logic
}
}
And now you can use those data everywhere, with importing this Store file
HomeView.vue
import MarkdownStore from '../stores/MarkdownStore'
export default {
data() {
sharedItems: MarkdownStore.data
},
created() {
MarkdownStore.fetchData()
}
}
So that's the basic flow that you could use, If you dont' want to go with Vuex.
what is the best practice for passing down oberservable data/parameters, so that when it's modified by child components I have access to the new values?
The flow of props is one way down, a child should never modify its props directly.
For a complex application, vuex is the solution, but for a simple case vuex is an overkill. Just like what #Belmin said, you can even use a plain JavaScript object for that, thanks to the reactivity system.
Another solution is using events. Vue has already implemented the EventEmitter interface, a child can use this.$emit('eventName', data) to communicate with its parent.
The parent will listen on the event like this: (#update is the shorthand of v-on:update)
<child :value="value" #update="onChildUpdate" />
and update the data in the event handler:
methods: {
onChildUpdate (newValue) {
this.value = newValue
}
}
Here is a simple example of custom events in Vue:
http://codepen.io/CodinCat/pen/ZBELjm?editors=1010
This is just parent-child communication, if a component needs to talk to its siblings, then you will need a global event bus, in Vue.js, you can just use an empty Vue instance:
const bus = new Vue()
// In component A
bus.$on('somethingUpdated', data => { ... })
// In component B
bus.$emit('somethingUpdated', newData)
you can meke ref to child component and use it as this
this.$refs.refComponentName.$data
parent-component
<template>
<section>
<childComponent ref="nameOfRef" />
</section>
</template>
methods: {
save() {
let Data = this.$refs.nameOfRef.$data;
}
},
In my case I have a registration form that I've broken down into components.
As suggested above I used $refs, In my parent I have for example:
In Template:
<Personal ref="personal" />
Script - Parent Component
export default {
components: {
Personal,
Employment
},
data() {
return {
personal: null,
education: null
}
},
mounted: function(){
this.personal = this.$refs.personal.model
this.education = this.$refs.education.model
}
}
This works well as the data is reactive.