Why Might You Consider Nuxt For Your Next Vue Project?

Vue has made its presence felt in the development ecosystem over the years. It provides the ability to build progressive applications and user interfaces. However, you might consider Nuxt for your next Vue project, and there are many reasons behind it. 

Nuxt js is an open-source high-level JavaScript that builds apps on the top of Vue.js. Plus, it aims to make server-side rendered web apps while using different Vue libraries and development tools. 

Basically, it is based upon the next framework but in Vue. And if the developers are familiar with Vue, they won’t face issues while dealing with Nuxt. 

Nuxt.js vs Vue.js 

The main difference between Nuxt and Vue is that Vue lies on the client-side, and helps build single-page applications. While this approach helps improve user experience and speed – there are a few exceptions. 

The browser may take longer during the loading of the website because single-page applications ship HTML and CSS of the web page without full reloading. Additionally, the browser would need all together to take some meaningful content to the show. It means that while the browser is busy fetching the code, search engines don’t get time to crawl through the site content. 

Nuxt takes your site and apps to the next level as it deals with both client-side and server-side rendering. Besides, it resolves most of the issues by rendering the server-side rendered single-page applications. And server-side rendering refers to the preloading of the website over the server, which helps generate a ready-to-display page on every request made. 

In addition, it is used for indexing the search engine during crawling and the process improves the site performance and SEO. Also, Nuxt works as a static site generator as it renders the application statically and helps deliver the benefits of universal applications without the server. It is pre-configured to generate a universal Vue. 

What Is Nuxt.js?

Nuxt.js is a frontend technology for building Vue.js applications. It offers features such as –

• Server-side rendering
• Pre rendering
• Automatically generates routes
• Code splitting
• Better management of Meta tags 
• Improvement in SEO
• Code Splitting

Let us find the reasons behind considering nuxt.js for your next Vue project-

Developing universal apps 

A universal app is JavaScript code that can be executed on both the server and client-side.

Most of the latest JavaScript frameworks (e.g., Vue) can create Single Page Applications (SPAs). A universal app is a SPA rather than a blank HTML page that you load beforehand on a web server. 

It requires sending rendered HTML in response to a request by the browser for each route to improve loading time. It makes SEO better by making crawling easier for Google.

Automatic code splitting 

Nuxt.js creates a static form of your website with a dedicated Webpack configuration. For every page generated statically, the route comes with a JavaScript file with the code required to execute the route. 

Setup by Command Line Using Starter Template

Nuxt.js offers a starter template that provides the framework required to begin with a project having a good folder structure. You need to ensure that you have Vue-CLI installed and execute the following command:

$ Vue init nuxt-community/starter-template <project-name>

From this point, change the directory to the application and run npm install.

A Good Structure for Projects

Several small applications in Vue deal with handling the structure of the code in the best possible manner through multiple files. The default structure of the Nuxt.js application is the best way to organize applications systematically.

The following list shows some of the leading directories that are necessary for set up-

• Components — a folder specifically for arranging your different Vue components.
• Layouts — a folder containing layouts for your primary application
• Pages — a folder containing routes for your applications. Nuxt.js reads all the .vue files present in this directory and generates the application router.
• Store — a folder containing all of your application’s Vuex Store Files.

Setting Simple Transitions between Your Routes

Vue comes with a wrapper <transition> element that manages CSS transitions and JavaScript animations on your components or elements. Nuxt.js arranges your routes in a way that every page gets wrapped in an <transition> element.

Single File Components

Components in many small Vue projects are defined using Vue. component followed by a new Vue({ el: ‘#container’ }) to mark a container element in the body of every page. It is suitable for small projects, but it becomes difficult to handle in big projects.

The solution for this lies in single-file components having .vue extension. These can be used by setting up a build process with software like Babel and Webpack.

Auto-Updating Server 

Nuxt.js works and develops with .vue files through a Webpack configuration to check for modifications and compilation. You need to execute the npm run dev command inside a Nuxt.js project, and the development server is ready.

Conclusion

Creating a project using Nuxt.js can be a little tricky in the beginning. But with practice, you will find the potential and advantages of the Nuxt.js framework. Nuxt.js saves time and effort on configuration, which can be utilized to solve and develop better Vue applications.