How to Dynamically Generate Components on Button Click in Vue 3

Discover how to efficiently create and append components in Vue 3 without losing existing elements. Learn the right approach here!
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Generating Components Dynamically in Vue 3 with Button Clicks

If you're developing an application using Vue 3 and have ever wanted to add new components each time a button is clicked, you're not alone. Many developers aim to programmatically generate components but often run into issues—especially when it involves maintaining the previous instances of these components. This guide will guide you through a clean and effective method to achieve this in Vue 3.

The Problem: Component Overwriting

In your existing setup, you successfully created a mechanism to add new Div components using defineComponent and createApp. However, there was a snag. When adding additional components by clicking the button multiple times, you noticed that only the most recently created Div was rendered. This happened because each call to the mount method replaced the content of the target element. As a result, previous instances of your components were lost.

The Solution: Using <component> and Data Binding

Instead of mounting new Vue instances each time, you can leverage Vue’s <component> feature coupled with a dynamic array to manage your components efficiently. By maintaining a list of the components you want to render, you can trigger updates to your displayed components without losing their state.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Here’s how to implement this solution:

1. Define Your Main Component:

You will create a template that includes a button for adding components and a div to host your dynamically created components.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

2. Define Your Div Component:
Make sure your Div component is prepared to be included dynamically.

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

How It Works

Dynamic Component Creation: The elements array holds objects that define the type of component to render. When you click the button, a new object with the type of the desired component is pushed to the array.

Rendering Multiple Instances: The <component v-for> directive iterates through the elements array. For each entry, it dynamically creates the specified component.

Benefits of This Approach

State Management: Each component remains distinct and retains its state since they are never unmounted and remounted.

Flexibility: You can easily modify or remove components from the elements array to update your UI dynamically.

Conclusion

By dynamically generating Vue components using the <component> tag and an array structure to manage them, you can easily create a user-interactive application. This method not only avoids overwriting existing components but also gives you greater control over their lifecycle and state. Start implementing this in your Vue 3 applications for a more seamless user experience!