Create Dynamic Drop-down component with Vue 3, Tailwind CSS and Laravel 9

Good day everyone 👋

In this article i'm going to explain how to build a fully dynamic drop-down VueJS 3 component with HTML, Tailwind CSS 3 and Laravel 9. We will use composition API which was introduced in the latest version of Vue, our drop-down's content will be looping over Mysql database so it's a dynamic component and also we will introduce Vue3 click-outside npm package to close the drop-down when the user clicks anywhere else on the screen.

By the end of this 2 parts series you will be able to build this:

Table of Content:

• 0- What will You Learn?
• 0- Tools
• 1- Install Nodejs and npm
• 2- Start your Laravel Project
• 3- Install Database Management Tool
• 4- Create a Database
• 5- Connect to Database
• 6- Create fake users & Migrate with seed
• 7- Install Tailwind CSS
• 8- Install Vue and it's dependencies
• 9- Prepare your blade file
• 10- Enable Vue and make component
• 11- Build the Drop-down
• 12- Vue JS 3 click outside
• 13- Loop over users in Database
• 14- Finishing

By the end of this tutorial, you should know the below by heart ❤️:

• How to install Node and npm.
• How to create new Laravel 9 project.
• How to create and connect to a database.
• How to seed fake users to database.
• How to install tailwind CSS.
• How to install Vue, Vue Router and Vue Loader and activate them.
• How to prepare your blade file to receive your component via Vue-router
• How to make a dynamic drop-down vue js 3 component using composition API and click-outside package and style it with Tailwind CSS 3.
• How to receive Json data from database via route and loop over them with axios in Vue component.

A piece of advice before starting, this is a step by step guide so it's better if you code along as we will be using multiple frameworks and techniques. Let's get to it? 👇

0- I'm using

1- npm & Node
2- Laravel 9 🥳
3- Table plus
4- Tailwind CSS 3
5- Vue JS 3 (With Vue Router & Vue Loader)
6- Windows Terminal
7- VS Code

1- Install Nodejs and npm:

• First thing you need to make sure that you have Node and npm installed on your machine.
• You can check that by opening up the terminal and type those two commands:

npm -v
node -v

• If you need to install them 🔗 DOCs for downloading Node and npm
• If you got that converged, move on 👇

PS C:\Users\Moose> node -v
v16.13.2
PS C:\Users\Moose> npm -v
8.4.0

2- Start your Laravel Project:

• If you already have a project, you can skip this step 👇.
• I use composer to create Laravel projects.
• You can download composer from here: https://getcomposer.org/
• Open up your terminal and create your Laravel project in the desired directory.
• The below command will create new Laravel 9 project for us.

PS C:\Users\Moose> cd F:\Projects
PS F:\Projects> composer create-project laravel/laravel dropdown-component

3- Install Database Management Tool:

• I use free version of table plus to manage my databases.
• You can download it from here: https://tableplus.com/
• This really doesn't require any instructions, keep clicking next and leave everything to default settings.
• You don't have to use it if you prefer another database management tool.

4- Create a Database:

• I will use MySQL Database. You're free to use whatever database you like.
• There are many ways to create Mysql Database, to know more you can visit this link.
• I will create a database using MySQL Command Line Client and name it 'dropdown'.

mysql> create database dropdown;

5- Connect to Database:

• Open your Laravel project in the preferred code editor, in my case I will use VS Code.
• Head to your env file in the main Laravel project directory.
• In the below section make sure to update all the info to match your created database.

• Open table plus -> click on 'Create new connection' -> MySQL.
• Fill in the fields with the info you just created.
• You can name the connection with anything you want.
• After filling the fields click test then connect.

6- Create fake users & Migrate with seed:

• Head to database\seeders\DatabaseSeeder.php and remove the comment from the line in run() function.
• This will allow you to create 10 fake users with Laravel Factory.

• Open up the terminal in the main project directory to run your migration command and --seed the fake users to database.

PS F:\Projects\dropdown-component> php artisan migrate --seed

• You can test that everything is as expected to this point, head to resources\views\welcome.blade.php and clear it,
• Create new HTML boilerplate and in the body write the below code.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>dropdown</title>
</head>
<body>
    @foreach ($users as $user)
        <p>The name of the user is: {{ $user->name }}</p>
    @endforeach
</body>
</html>

• Open the terminal and hit the below code within the project main directory to serve and see your project in browser.

PS F:\Projects\dropdown-component> php artisan serve

• You should see now that Laravel is looping over the database User's table and giving us back the name for each user.

7- Install Tailwind CSS:

• If you would like to install Tailwind CLI you can visit my article for a step by step guide on how to do that 🔗 CLICK HERE
• Or you can simply add the following line of code to import tailwind CDN in your project by following the steps in the documentation HERE
• In my case, I will use tailwind CLI for better results.

8- Install Vue and it's dependencies:

• Open the terminal in your project's main directory and run the below code to install Vue, Vue Router and Vue Loader.

PS F:\Projects\dropdown-component> npm install vue@next vue-router@next vue-loader@next

• I also prefer running npm run watch and leave it running in the backgroud while I'm working on my project.

PS F:\Projects\dropdown-component> npm run watch

• Head to webpack.mix.js file in your project's main directory and .vue() right before postCss.

mix.js("resources/js/app.js", "public/js")
    .vue()
    .postCss("resources/css/app.css", "public/css", [require("tailwindcss")]);

9- Prepare your blade file:

• Head to the welcome.blade.php file and clear the body then I will add empty divs that will contain our Vue component with router-vue.
• Don't forget to add id="app".

<body>
    <main class="max-w-6xl mx-auto mt-6 lg:mt-20 space-y-6" 
                 id="app">

        <div class="max-w-xl mx-auto mt-10 text-center">
            <div class="space-y-2 lg:space-y-0 lg:space-x-4 mt-8" 
                        id="app">
                <div class="relative lg:inline-flex items-center 
                            bg-blue-100 rounded-xl">

                    <router-view />

                </div>
            </div>
        </div>

    </main>
</body>

10- Enable Vue and make component:

• Head to resources\js\app.js and add the below code and save to enable Vue JS.

import { createApp } from "vue";

createApp({
    components: {},
}).mount("#app");

• Head to resources\js and create a subfolder called components and within that folder create DropdownComponent.vue file.
• Inside the file write Vue default setup and leave a 'hello world' for testing.

<template>
    <h1 class="text-red-500 text-bold">Hello world</h1>
</template>

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

<style></style>

• Now it's time to create our route to this component.
• Head to resources\js and create a subfolder called router and inside it create index.js file.
• Write the below code inside index.js file.
• In this code you're basically telling your project

Hi, I want to use Vue router and import this component whenever I'm in that path

import { createRouter, createWebHistory } from "vue-router";
import DropdownComponent from "../components/DropdownComponent";

const routes = [
    {
        path: "/",
        name: "home",
        component: DropdownComponent,
    },
];

export default createRouter({
    history: createWebHistory(),
    routes,
});

• Head back to resources\js\app.js and import your router and component.
• End result below.

import { createApp } from "vue";
import router from "./router";
import DropdownComponent from "./components/DropdownComponent";

createApp({
    components: {
        DropdownComponent,
    },
})
    .use(router)
    .mount("#app");

• Open up the terminal and stop your npm run watch if it's running and run it again to compile your files properly.
• Now if you refresh you broswer you should see your hello world.

11- Build the Drop-down:

• Head back to DropdownComponent.vue and within the template you can start building your Dropdown.
• I create a container div which contains a button and a div. I want when I press on the button I can see list of links.
• I will add a @click to the button and conditionally show the div with links if some condition is true.

<template>
    <div>
        <button
            @click="showUsers"
            class="flex max-h-52 w-full overflow-auto py-2 pl-3 pr-9 text-sm font-semibold lg:inline-flex lg:w-32"
        >
            Users
        </button>
        <div
            v-show="usersToggle"
            class="mt-1 w-full rounded-xl bg-blue-100 py-2"
        >
            <a href="#" class="block mt-1 w-full rounded-xl bg- 
                               blue-100 py-2">
                Testing
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
</template>

• Now let's move to the script tags to import what we need and write down our logic using composition API.
• I will import ref and onMounted then create a usersToggle and set it to false and make the click on the button change it to true.

<script>
import { ref, onMounted } from "vue";
export default {
    name: "home",
    setup() {
        const usersToggle = ref(false);

        const showUsers = () => {
            usersToggle.value = !usersToggle.value;
        };

        return { showUsers, usersToggle };
    },
};
</script>

• Now if you check your browser, whenever you click on the button it will open a drop-down list with the testing links and if you click it again it will close.

12- Vue JS 3 click outside:

• Head to the following LINKand install npm click outside package for Vue3. PS F:\Projects\dropdown-component> npm install --save click-outside-vue3
• Head to app.js and import it import vClickOutside from "click-outside-vue3"; and don't forget to add vClickOutside just next to use router .use(router, vClickOutside)
• Head to DropdownComponent.vue and import it within the script tags import vClickOutside from 'click-outside-vue3'
• Add the directive as is says in the DOCs

    directives: {
        clickOutside: vClickOutside.directive,
    },

• Then in the setup make sure to create your function that will make the usersToggle false again by clicking outside and return it.

setup() {
        const usersToggle = ref(false);

        const showUsers = () => {
            usersToggle.value = !usersToggle.value;
        };

        const onClickOutside = (event) => {
            usersToggle.value = false;
        };

        return { showUsers, usersToggle, onClickOutside };
    },

• Within the template, add v-click-outside="onClickOutside" to the container div.
• Now if you test it on browser it works like a charm.

13- Loop over users in Database:

• Create a new route to receive your Json data from database.

Route::get('list', function () {
    return response()->json([
        'users' => \App\Models\User::all()
    ], Response::HTTP_OK);
});

• Head back to your component and adjust the anchor tag to loop over users array.

            <a
                href="#"
                class="block mt-1 w-full rounded-xl bg-blue-100 
                       py-2"
                v-for="user in users"
                :key="user.id"
            >
                {{ user.name }}
            </a>

• In the setup, create empty array for users.

        const users = ref([]);

• Then write the below code to say:

Hey! Get my Json data as a response from this path, and change the users array value to whatever data in the response.
Not only this, I want this data as soon as my component is mounted and return it to me.

        const getUsers = () => {
            axios.get("/list").then((response) => {
                users.value = response.data.users;
            });
        };

        onMounted(() => {
            getUsers();
        });

        return {
            showUsers,
            usersToggle,
            onClickOutside,
            getUsers,
            users,
        };

• Now, If you check your browser you will see your users names in a dynamic functional dropdown menu.

This is a final screen for my code in case you want to compare it to yours:

Also you can find full code on Github: https://github.com/MooseSaeed/dropdown-component

14- Finishing:

Congratulations you've created a complex Vue component with the latest release of everything 🎉🥳

Thank you so much for reading my article and I hope it was helpful for everyone.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback please leave them below or find me on Twitter and DMs are open.