Apr 3, 2023 Author - Sai gowtham

Vue tabs tutorial-Dynamically switch components

vuejs2min read

In this tutorial, we are going to learn about how to dynamically switch from one component to another component by creating a tabbed interface with Vue.js.

Getting started

Let’s create a new vue project by using vue-cli.

Open your terminal and run the following command to create a vue project.

vue create vue-tabs

This above command will download the vue-related files inside the vue-tabs folder.

Now change your current working directory by running the below command.

cd vue-tabs

Now open your vue-tabs project folder in your favorite code editor.

Creating components

Let’s create two new components called Home and Contact inside our components folder.

Home component

Home.vue

<template>
  <div>
   <h1>This is Home component</h1>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
export default {};
</script>

Contact component

Contact.vue

<template>
  <div>
   <h1>This is Contact component</h1>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
export default {};
</script>

Creating tabs

Let’s create a tabbed interface by importing our two components inside App.vue file.

Vue.js provides us a <component> element which is used to render the components dynamically by adding :is special attribute.

App.vue

<template>
  <div>
    <button v-for="tab in tabs" :key="tab" @click="selected = tab;">
      {{ tab }}
    </button>

    <component :is="selected"></component>  </div>
</template>

<script>
import Home from "./components/Home";
import Contact from "./components/Contact";

export default {
  data: function() {
    return {
      tabs: ["Home", "Contact"],      selected: "Home"    };
  },
  components: {
    Home,
    Contact
  }
};
</script>

Inside our template we have added a <component> element with :is="selected" attribute,by default selected property is pointing to Home component.

We are updating our selected property based on the name of a component.

Let’s test our app.

Adding styles

Let’s add the active styles to our tab button so that we can know currently which tab is displaying.

Update your App.vue file by adding below styles.

App.vue

<template>
  <div>
    <button
      v-for="tab in tabs"      :key="tab"
      @click="selected = tab;"
      :class="['tab-btn', { active: selected === tab }]"    >
      {{ tab }}
    </button>

    <component :is="selected" class="tab"></component>
  </div>
</template>

<script>
import Home from "./components/Home";
import Contact from "./components/Contact";

export default {
  data: function() {
    return {
      tabs: ["Home", "Contact"],
      selected: "Home"
    };
  },
  components: {
    Home,
    Contact
  }
};
</script>

<style>
.tab-btn {
  padding: 6px 10px;
  background: #ffffff;
  cursor: pointer;
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
  border: 2px solid #cccccc;
  outline: none;
}

.active {
  border-bottom: 3px solid green;
  background: #fcfcf;
}

.tab {
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  padding: 10px;
}
</style>