Completed Guide Vue Suspense With Vue Suspense Examples

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore Vue Suspense. Suspense allows you to handle asynchronous components with ease and provide a better user experience by displaying fallback content while the component is loading.

We’ll go into what suspense is in Vue.js, understand its benefits, and learn how to use it with practical examples.

So, if you’re looking to make your Vue.js applications more responsive and user-friendly, let’s dive into the world of Vue Suspense and see how it can transform the way you handle asynchronous operations in your web projects!

Learn more by reading my longer article about What Is A Vue Component?

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Vue Suspense

Vue Suspense allows you to improve the user experience by managing asynchronous components and their loading states.

What Is Suspense In Vue?

Vue Suspense is a powerful feature introduced in Vue.js 2.6.0 that allows you to improve the user experience by managing asynchronous components and their loading states.

Asynchronous components are those that are dynamically loaded when needed, such as lazy-loaded routes or components fetched from an API.

Before Vue Suspense, when a component was loading, the user might see a blank or partially rendered screen, leading to a poor user experience.

Vue Suspense helps to tackle this issue by providing a smooth way to handle loading states.

With Vue Suspense, you can wrap asynchronous components in a special <suspense> element, and then use the <template v-slot:default> slot to define fallback content that should be displayed while the component is loading.

Once the component is ready, Vue will automatically replace the fallback content with the fully loaded component, ensuring a seamless transition for users.

How Do You Use Suspense In Vue?

To use suspense in Vue, you’ll need to make use of the Suspense component and the v-slot directive. Here’s a step-by-step example:

Step 1: Define an asynchronous component

Let’s create a simple asynchronous component that takes some time to load. Imagine we have a component named AsyncComponent that is imported using dynamic import:

Step 2: Import the component using dynamic import

Now, in your parent component, import the AsyncComponent using dynamic import. This is where suspense comes into play:

Step 3: Vue takes care of the suspense

Now, when you render ParentComponent, Vue will handle the suspense automatically. It will display the fallback content (“Loading…”) while the AsyncComponent is being fetched.

Once the asynchronous operation is completed, Vue will replace the fallback content with the actual AsyncComponent content.

This ensures that your users won’t be stuck looking at a blank screen or a loading spinner while the component loads.

Instead, they will see a helpful message or any other content you’ve provided as a fallback, making the user experience much more pleasant.

Don´t forget to check out my article about Learn To Use Vue v-model With Vue.js Examples

Vue Suspense Example

Vue Suspense Example: Let’s dive into a real-life example of how Vue Suspense can significantly improve the user experience in a web application.

Imagine you are developing an online shopping platform with multiple product categories.

One of the categories is “Electronics,” which contains numerous products, including high-resolution images and detailed descriptions.

Without suspense, when a user clicks on the “Electronics” category, the page would need to load all the products and their associated data simultaneously.

This could result in a longer loading time, especially if the user has a slow internet connection or is accessing the website on a mobile device.

During this loading period, the user might see a blank screen or a loading spinner, leading to a subpar user experience.

However, by leveraging Vue Suspense, you can make the shopping platform much more engaging.

Let’s consider an example where the “Electronics” category is implemented as an asynchronous component:

Now, in your parent component, you can use Vue Suspense to handle the asynchronous loading of the “Electronics” category:

In this example, when a user clicks on the “Electronics” category, Vue will display the fallback content (“Loading Electronics…”) while the Electronics.vue component is being fetched asynchronously.

Once the data is ready, Vue will replace the fallback content with the actual “Electronics” products, creating a smooth transition for the user.

This implementation improves the user experience by providing feedback to the user that something is happening in the background, reducing perceived loading time, and avoiding the frustration of seeing a blank screen.

Don´t forget to check out my article about Using v-bind In Vue With Vue Binding Examples

Vue Suspense Component

Vue Suspense Component: Now, let’s take a closer look at the Vue Suspense component and how it fits into the overall architecture of a Vue.js application.

Vue Suspense is a built-in component provided by Vue.js that allows you to handle asynchronous components gracefully.

Its primary purpose is to define fallback content that will be displayed while an asynchronous component is loading.

This fallback content ensures that users have a pleasant experience even when there’s a slight delay in loading the actual component.

In the previous examples, you’ve already seen how to use the Vue Suspense component.

It wraps the asynchronous component you want to load and provides a slot where you can define the fallback content. Here’s a more detailed explanation:

Import Suspense: Before using Vue Suspense, make sure to import it from the Vue library in your script section:

Define Fallback Content: Inside the Suspense component, use the v-slot directive to define the fallback content that should be displayed while the asynchronous component is loading:

Load Asynchronous Component: Place the asynchronous component you want to load inside the Suspense component.

In the example, we used the AsyncComponent as our asynchronously loaded component.

By utilizing Vue Suspense, you can maintain a smooth and engaging user experience by showing useful feedback to users while waiting for components to load.

Vue Suspense router-view

Vue Suspense router-view: Vue Suspense can also be used effectively with the Vue Router, specifically with the router-view component.

The router-view is the component responsible for displaying the matched component based on the current route.

Using suspense with router-view allows you to apply the same asynchronous loading and fallback content display for different pages or routes in your application.

This is particularly helpful when some routes require more time to fetch and render content than others.

Let’s see how to use Vue Suspense with router-view:

Set Up Routes: Define your routes in the Vue Router configuration. Each route should have a component property that points to the corresponding component for that route.

Use Suspense with Router-View: In your main App component or any parent component that renders the router-view, wrap it with the Vue Suspense component, and provide fallback content.

With this setup, whenever the user navigates to a route that requires an asynchronous component to be loaded (e.g., the “Electronics” route), Vue Suspense will display the fallback content while waiting for the component to load.

Once the component is ready, Vue will switch to the actual content of that route, providing a seamless user experience.

Using Vue Suspense with router-view is a powerful way to optimize your application’s loading times, especially if certain pages have heavy content or depend on external data sources.

It keeps the user engaged and informed, resulting in a more positive and enjoyable browsing experience.

Don´t forget to check out my article about Differences Between Vue 2 vs Vue 3 With Vue Examples

Vue Suspense Error

Vue Suspense Error: While Vue Suspense is a powerful tool for handling asynchronous components gracefully, there may be cases where things don’t go as planned, and an error occurs during the loading process.

When an error happens while loading the asynchronous component, Vue Suspense allows you to define a fallback error component to provide a better user experience.

Let’s take an example where we have a component called AsyncComponent that is intended to be loaded asynchronously but encounters an error:

In the example above, we intentionally create an error condition by calling the reject function inside the created lifecycle hook of the AsyncComponent.

Now, in the parent component where we use Vue Suspense, we can handle the error condition gracefully:

In this updated example, we’ve added a new slot called error within the Suspense component.

This slot is used to define the fallback content that will be displayed if an error occurs during the loading of the AsyncComponent.

Now, if there’s an error while loading the component, Vue Suspense will switch from the default fallback content (“Loading or Error…”) to the specified error fallback content (“An error occurred while loading the component.”).

Handling errors with Vue Suspense is crucial in providing a user-friendly experience.

It allows you to communicate to the users that something went wrong and provides context for the error situation, keeping them informed and engaged with the application.

Vue Suspense Transition

Vue Suspense Transition: Vue Suspense not only enables smooth loading of asynchronous components but also works seamlessly with Vue’s transition system.

This means you can add transition effects to the fallback content and the actual content, further enhancing the user experience during component loading.

Imagine you have a simple asynchronous component named AsyncComponent that you want to load with a transition effect:

To apply a transition effect when the component is loading or switching from the fallback content to the actual content, you can use Vue’s <transition> component along with Vue Suspense:

In this example, we’ve added a <transition> component with the name “fade” around the fallback content (“Loading…”).

The fade-enter-active and fade-leave-active classes define the CSS transition properties for opacity, and the fade-enter and fade-leave-to classes define the starting and ending opacity values.