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Announcing Our New Starter.dev Kit: Nuxt 3 with Pinia and Vuetify

This article was written over 18 months ago and may contain information that is out of date. Some content may be relevant but please refer to the relevant official documentation or available resources for the latest information.

We're thrilled to unveil our brand new starter.dev kit: a Nuxt 3 kit using Pinia as the state manager and Vuetify for styles.

While Nuxt 2 is still reliable and powerful, Nuxt 3, being the latest iteration of this versatile framework, brings an array of innovative features and enhanced flexibility that make it an ideal choice for your next development project.

Now, let's explore what this kit offers, and how it can help you in your upcoming application development.

Nuxt 3 vs Nuxt 2

First, why Nuxt 3? Let's delve into what Nuxt 3 is and why we've opted for this technology for our kit.

Nuxt 3 is a modern web development framework based on Vue 3 for building server-side rendered applications, single-page applications, or statically rendered websites. It's an evolution of Nuxt 2 and provides an improved developer experience and better performance.

Let’s see what features it has to offer in comparison to Nuxt 2!

  • Built on Vue 3: Nuxt 3 is built from the ground up using Vue 3, which brings a host of new features including conditional suspending of component rendering via the Suspense API, more flexibility for global mounting, and a Virtual DOM rewrite for better performance and improved TypeScript support.

  • Nitro Engine: Nitro, the new rendering server for Nuxt 3, is built for serverless architectures and offers extremely fast cold-start times. Nuxt 3 is planned to support Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) using the Nitro renderer.

  • Native Composition API Support: Nuxt 3 has native support for the Vue Composition API, a feature that Nuxt 2 had to rely on an external library to use. The Composition API changes how code is written in Vue and is now built-in with Nuxt 3 since it is built on top of Vue 3.

  • Faster Hot Reloads with Vite: Nuxt 3 uses Vite for Hot Module Replacement (HMR), which is used when the server re-renders the updated components of your application in both development and production. This leads to faster hot reloads.

  • Additional Features: There are several other salient features of Nuxt 3, including a new Nuxt CLI (nuxi), NuxtJS Dev tools, and global auto imports of common functions such as ref​.

Nuxt 3 brings remarkable performance enhancements, significantly reducing the size of server deployments and client bundles. These improvements are made possible by implementing a new renderer, faster hot reloads, and built-in support for native TypeScript and Composition API, as mentioned earlier. With such impressive features at our disposal, the decision to choose this framework was undoubtedly the right one.

###Pinia

Let's talk about the state management library we've chosen. As the successor to Vuex, Pinia is now the default state management library for Vue 3.

Pinia shines when sharing global state within your application; it ensures security and ease of use, especially when using SSR, which is often the case with Nuxt.

Pinia's integration with Nuxt 3 is seamless, benefiting from Vue 3's inbuilt Composition API. The use of Pinia greatly simplifies the state management in Vue-based applications.

###Vuetify

Vuetify is an exceptional Material Design framework for Vue.js that assists in building elegant, responsive, and interactive web applications.

In Nuxt 3, the integration of Vuetify can be done smoothly, thanks to Nuxt's flexibility. This makes the process of building modern, visually appealing applications more efficient and enjoyable.

What's inside the Nuxt 3 Kit?

Our aim in developing the starter.dev kit is to equip you with essentials while maintaining flexibility.

The kit incorporates a counter component that manages state using a Pinia store, and a Fetch component showcasing data fetch in Nuxt 3. We decided to omit Storybook and testing from this starter.dev kit. Storybook is currently incompatible with Nuxt 3, but rest assured, we will incorporate it as soon as compatibility support is introduced.

Regarding testing, tools like Vitest and others have been excluded for now. The current Nuxt 3 testing landscape is still under development and not deemed production-ready. As the testing environment matures, we will update our starter.dev kit to include the most efficient and reliable testing solutions.

Furthermore, the kit includes configurations for ESLint, Prettier, and is written entirely in TypeScript. This saves you significant time by taking the hassle out of setting up these tools in a new project.

How do I use the kit?

Use our starter.dev CLI! This is by far the easiest method.

Simply run the command

npx @this-dot/create-starter

This will display a list of available starter.dev kits. Select the one that fits your needs - in this case, the nuxt3-pinia-vuetify one! You'll be asked to provide a name for your new project, and once that's inputted, the CLI will begin preparing the kit for you!

Once installed, you can cd into your new project directory with the name you provided earlier, and start coding. But don’t forget to install the required dependencies with your package manager of choice (I recommend pnpm 🫣).

For a deeper insight into the kit, visit https://starter.dev/kits/nuxt3-pinia-vuetify/ where you can read the README.md file for more detailed documentation, as well as take a look at the source code. Don't forget to read the package.json file to see the scripts available for the kit.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, our new starter.dev kit integrates Nuxt 3, Pinia, and Vuetify.. This article not only introduces you to the kit but also delves into the features and advantages that make it stand out - the improved performance of Nuxt 3, the ease of state management with Pinia, and the sophisticated stylings of Vuetify. As the digital landscape evolves, we will keep this kit updated with tools like Storybook and comprehensive testing capabilities as soon as they become Nuxt 3-compatible.

That's it, folks! We're eager for you to take this kit for a spin in your next project. We've built it with much care and attention to detail, ensuring it brings significant value to your development process. We hope you find it as enjoyable to use as we did creating it. Happy coding!

This Dot is a consultancy dedicated to guiding companies through their modernization and digital transformation journeys. Specializing in replatforming, modernizing, and launching new initiatives, we stand out by taking true ownership of your engineering projects.

We love helping teams with projects that have missed their deadlines or helping keep your strategic digital initiatives on course. Check out our case studies and our clients that trust us with their engineering.

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