How to load all server side data on initial vue.js

Question

I'm currently making use of the WordPress REST API, and vue-router to transition between pages on a small single page site. However, when I make an AJAX call to the server using the REST API, the data loads, but only after the page has already rendered.

The vue-router documentation provides insight in regards to how to load data before and after navigating to each route, but I'd like to know how to load all route and page data on the initial page load, circumnavigating the need to load data each time a route is activated.

Note, I'm loading my data into the acf property, and then accessing it within a .vue file component using this.$parent.acfs.

main.js Router Code:

const router = new VueRouter({
    routes: [
        { path: '/', component: Home },
        { path: '/about', component: About },
        { path: '/tickets', component: Tickets },
        { path: '/sponsors', component: Sponsors },
    ],
    hashbang: false
});

exports.router = router;

const app = new Vue({
    router,
    data: {
        acfs: ''
    },
    created() {
        $.ajax({
            url: 'http://localhost/placeholder/wp-json/acf/v2/page/2',
            type: 'GET',
            success: function(response) {
                console.log(response);
                this.acfs = response.acf;
                // this.backgroundImage = response.acf.background_image.url
            }.bind(this)
        })
    }
}).$mount('#app')

Home.vue Component Code:

export default {
    name: 'about',
    data () {
        return {
            acf: this.$parent.acfs,
        } 
    },
}

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Alright, I finally figured this thing out. All I'm doing is calling a synchronous ajax request within my main.js file where my root vue instance is instantiated, and assigning a data property the requested data as so:

main.js

let acfData;

$.ajax({
    async: false,
    url: 'http://localhost/placeholder/wp-json/acf/v2/page/2',
    type: 'GET',
    success: function(response) {
        console.log(response.acf);
        acfData = response.acf;
    }.bind(this)
})  

const router = new VueRouter({
    routes: [
        { path: '/', component: Home },
        { path: '/about', component: About },
        { path: '/tickets', component: Tickets },
        { path: '/sponsors', component: Sponsors },
    ],
    hashbang: false
});

exports.router = router;

const app = new Vue({
    router,
    data: {
        acfs: acfData 
    },
    created() {

    }
}).$mount('#app')

From here, I can use the pulled data within each individual .vue file / component like so:

export default {
    name: 'app',
    data () {
    return {
        acf: this.$parent.acfs,
    }
},

Finally, I render the data within the same .vue template with the following:

<template>
  <transition
      name="home"
      v-on:enter="enter"
      v-on:leave="leave"
      v-bind:css="false"
      mode="out-in"
    >
    <div class="full-height-container background-image home" v-bind:style="{backgroundImage: 'url(' + this.acf.home_background_image.url + ')'}">
      <div class="content-container">
        <h1 class="white bold home-title">{{ acf.home_title }}</h1>
        <h2 class="white home-subtitle">{{ acf.home_subtitle }}</h2>
        <div class="button-block">
          <a href="#/about"><button class="white home-button-1">{{ acf.link_title_1 }}</button></a>
          <a href="#/tickets"><button class="white home-button-2">{{ acf.link_title_2 }}</button></a>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </transition>
</template>

The most important piece of information to take away, is that all of the ACF data is only being called ONCE at the very beginning, compared to every time a route is visited using something like beforeRouteEnter (to, from, next). As a result, I'm able to get silky smooth page transitions as desired.

Hope this helps whoever comes across the same problem.

Answer 2

My approach is to delay construction of the store and main Vue until my AJAX call has returned.

store.js

import Vue from 'vue';
import Vuex from 'vuex';
import actions from './actions';
import getters from './getters';
import mutations from './mutations';

Vue.use(Vuex);

function builder(data) {
  return new Vuex.Store({
    state: {
      exams: data,
    },
    actions,
    getters,
    mutations,
  });
}

export default builder;

main.js

import Vue from 'vue';
import VueResource from 'vue-resource';
import App from './App';
import router from './router';
import store from './store';

Vue.config.productionTip = false;

Vue.use(VueResource);

Vue.http.options.root = 'https://miguelmartinez.com/api/';

Vue.http.get('data')
  .then(response => response.json())
  .then((data) => {
    /* eslint-disable no-new */
    new Vue({
      el: '#app',
      router,
      store: store(data),
      template: '<App/>',
      components: { App },
    });
  });

I have used this approach with other frameworks such as Angular and ExtJS.

Answer 3

Check this section in docs of Vue Router

https://router.vuejs.org/guide/advanced/data-fetching.html

So first of you have to write method that would fetch data from your endpoint, and then use watcher to watch route.

export default {
    watch: {
        '$route': 'fetchItems'
    },
    methods: {
        fetchItems() {
          // fetch logic
        }
    }
}

Since you are working with WP Rest API, feel free to check my repo on Github https://github.com/bedakb/vuewp/blob/master/public/app/themes/vuewp/app/views/PostView.vue#L39

Answer 4

You can use navigation guards.

On a specific component, it would look like this:

export default {
    beforeRouteEnter (to, from, next) {
        // my ajax call
    }
};

You can also add a navigation guard to all components:

router.beforeEach((to, from, next) => {
    // my ajax call
});

One thing to remember is that navigation guards are async, so you need to call the next() callback when the data loading is finished. A real example from my app (where the guard function resides in a separate file):

export default function(to, from, next) {
    Promise.all([
        IngredientTypes.init(),
        Units.init(),
        MashTypes.init()
    ]).then(() => {
        next();
    });
};

In your case, you'd need to call next() in the success callback, of course.