VueFire

Vue.js 1 & 2 binding for Firebase 2 & 3

Installation

If included as global <script>: will install automatically if global Vue is present.

<head>
  <!-- Vue -->
  <script src="https://unpkg.com/vue/dist/vue.js"></script>
  <!-- Firebase -->
  <script src="https://gstatic.com/firebasejs/3.5.2/firebase.js"></script>
  <!-- VueFire -->
  <script src="https://unpkg.com/vuefire/dist/vuefire.js"></script>
</head>

In module environments, e.g CommonJS:

npm install vue firebase vuefire --save

var Vue = require('vue')
var VueFire = require('vuefire')
var Firebase = require('firebase')

// explicit installation required in module environments
Vue.use(VueFire)

Usage

var firebaseApp = firebase.initializeApp({ ... })
var db = firebaseApp.database()

var vm = new Vue({
  el: '#demo',
  firebase: {
    // simple syntax, bind as an array by default
    anArray: db.ref('url/to/my/collection'),
    // can also bind to a query
    // anArray: db.ref('url/to/my/collection').limitToLast(25)
    // full syntax
    anObject: {
      source: db.ref('url/to/my/object'),
      // optionally bind as an object
      asObject: true,
      // optionally provide the cancelCallback
      cancelCallback: function () {}
    }
  }
})

About the cancelCallback: This callback is actually an error handler that is called if the read/write doesn't succeed. You can of course also use it with asObject: false and apply it to arrays. The firebase doc states:

We can pass an optional cancel callback to our event subscription that will be called if the read is ever cancelled. A read would be cancelled if the app client doesn't have permission to read from that database reference. This callback will be passed an error object indicating why the failure occurrede.

<div id="demo">
  <pre>{{ anObject | json }}</pre>
  <ul>
    <li v-for="item in anArray">{{ item.text }}</li>
  </ul>
</div>

The above will bind the Vue instance's anObject and anArray to the respective Firebase data sources. In addition, the instance also gets the $firebaseRefs property, which holds the refs for each binding:

// add an item to the array
vm.$firebaseRefs.anArray.push({
  text: 'hello'
})

Alternatively, you can also manually bind to a Firebase ref with the $bindAsObject or $bindAsArray instance methods:

vm.$bindAsObject('user', myFirebaseRef.child('user'))
vm.$bindAsArray('items', myFirebaseRef.child('items').limitToLast(25))

// References are unbinded when the component is destroyed but you can manually unbind a reference
// if needed
vm.$unbind('items')

To save user-input to your Firebase database, simply push the data onto this.$firebaseRefs.items (instead of this.items) within a Vue method to automatically sync with Firebase. For example, in your template you could add something simple like

<input v-model="item" placeholder="Add an item"/>
<button @click="addItem">Add item</button>

And within your Vue component

export default {
  data () {
    return {
      item: ''
    }
  },
  firebase: {
    items: db.ref('items')
  },
  methods: {
    addItem () {
      this.$firebaseRefs.items.push({
        name: this.item
      })
    }
  }
}

Data Normalization

Array Bindings

Each record in the bound array will contain a .key property which specifies the key where the record is stored. So if you have data at /items/-Jtjl482BaXBCI7brMT8/, the record for that data will have a .key of "-Jtjl482BaXBCI7brMT8".

If an individual record's value in the database is a primitive (boolean, string, or number), the value will be stored in the .value property. If the individual record's value is an object, each of the object's properties will be stored as properties of the bound record. As an example, let's assume the /items/ node you bind to contains the following data:

{
  "items": {
    "-Jtjl482BaXBCI7brMT8": 100,
    "-Jtjl6tmqjNeAnQvyD4l": {
      "first": "fred",
      "last": "Flintstone"
    },
    "-JtjlAXoQ3VAoNiJcka9": "foo"
  }
}

The resulting bound array stored in vm.items will be:

[
  {
    ".key": "-Jtjl482BaXBCI7brMT8",
    ".value": 100
  },
  {
    ".key": "-Jtjl6tmqjNeAnQvyD4l",
    "first": "Fred",
    "last": "Flintstone"
  },
  {
    ".key": "-JtjlAXoQ3VAoNiJcka9",
    ".value": "foo"
  }
]

To delete or update an item you can use the .key property of a given object:

 // Vue instance methods
 deleteItem: function (item) {
   this.$firebaseRefs.items.child(item['.key']).remove()
 },
 updateItem: function (item) { 
   this.$firebaseRefs.items.child(item['.key']).set(item)
 }

You can check the full example at examples/todo-app.

Contributing

Clone the repo, then:

$ npm install    # install dependencies
$ npm test       # run test suite with coverage report
$ npm run dev    # watch and build dist/vuefire.js
$ npm run build  # build dist/vuefire.js and vuefire.min.js

License

MIT