Implementing Infinite Scroll in Vue: A Step-by-Step Guide

Getting Started with Vue

Vue is a lightweight framework that provides a way to declaratively render data to the DOM and uses a two-way data binding to keep the DOM up-to-date when the data changes. With Vue 3, we can write compact code, including the script, HTML, and styling, all within a single file.

Project Overview

Our project will implement an infinite scroll feature that loads new batches of data from a random online data generator. We’ll use a masonry CSS layout to display the data and add a loading label to indicate when new data is being loaded. Our goal is to detect when the user has reached the bottom of the component containing the infinite data and load a new batch of data accordingly.

Masonry Component

To detect when the user has reached the bottom of the component, we’ll manipulate three properties:

• masonry.clientHeight: The number of pixels for the entire height of the masonry element
• masonry.scrollTop: The number of pixels we have already scrolled through on the list of items
• window.scrollHeight: The number of pixels that are currently contained in the list of items

We’ll use these properties to determine when the user has reached the bottom of the list and load a new batch of data.

Loading New Batches of Data

To load new batches of data, we’ll create a method called getNextBatch that downloads a new batch of items from the random data source API using Axios. We’ll then append the new data to the existing array of items and update the number of pages or batches we’ve downloaded.

// getNextBatch method
async getNextBatch() {
  try {
    const response = await axios.get('undefinedrandom-data-api.com/api/v2/users');
    this.items = [...this.items, ...response.data];
    this.pages++;
  } catch (error) {
    console.error(error);
  }
}

Implementing Infinite Scroll

Now that we have our getNextBatch method, we can implement infinite scroll by calling this method when the user reaches the bottom of the component. We’ll add a scroll event listener to the mounted method that checks if the user has reached the bottom of the list and loads a new batch of data if necessary.

// mounted method
mounted() {
  this.$refs.masonry.addEventListener('scroll', () => {
    if (this.$refs.masonry.scrollTop + this.$refs.masonry.clientHeight >= this.$refs.masonry.scrollHeight) {
      this.getNextBatch();
    }
  });
}