Implementing undo functionality with Immer in Vue.js applications

29 Sep 2023

vuejs

Undo functionality is an essential feature in many applications as it allows users to revert changes and restore previous states. In Vue.js applications, we can easily implement undo functionality using Immer, a library that provides a simple and efficient way to work with immutable data structures.

What is Immer?

Immer is a JavaScript library that allows us to work with immutable data structures in a more convenient way. It provides a simple and readable API to produce a new version of an object with the desired changes, without directly mutating the original object.

Setting up Immer in Vue.js

To start using Immer in Vue.js applications, we need to install it first. We can use npm or yarn to install Immer:

npm install immer

Once installed, we can import and use Immer in our Vue components:

import produce from 'immer';

// ...

const newState = produce(oldState, draftState => {
  // make changes to draftState
});

Implementing undo functionality with Immer in Vue.js

Now that we have Immer set up in our Vue.js application, let’s look at how we can implement undo functionality using Immer.

Define a history array in your Vue component’s data:

data() {
  return {
    history: [],
    currentState: null,
  };
},

Create a method to handle changes and store the state history:

methods: {
  handleChange(newValue) {
    this.history.push(this.currentState);
    this.currentState = produce(this.currentState, draftState => {
      // make changes to draftState using the supplied newValue
    });
  },
},

Create a method to handle undo functionality:

methods: {
  handleUndo() {
    if (this.history.length > 0) {
      this.currentState = this.history.pop();
    }
  },
},

Use the undo functionality in your component’s template:
```
<button @click="handleUndo">Undo</button>
```

With these steps, we have implemented undo functionality using Immer in our Vue.js application. Each time the handleChange method is called, the current state is stored in the history array, allowing users to undo changes made.

Now, users can easily revert their changes by clicking the “Undo” button and the previous state will be restored using Immer’s immutability capabilities.

#vuejs #javascript #immer