In this episode, we focus on improving our product variation selector, particularly how we load and display child variation dropdowns. We start by stepping back and simplifying the logic for showing the children of a selected variant.
We begin by dumping the currently selected variation model to inspect its children. Once we verify that a selected variation (like choosing "black") has child variations (like different sizes), we move over to the controller to use eager loading. This helps us pre-load the children for all the variations, making things smoother when interacting with the dropdown.
With the children data ready, we check in the Blade template: if a variation has children, we display another dropdown for them. This is done recursively using the same product dropdown component, and we pass in the relevant child variations each time a new dropdown appears. To keep Livewire happy and avoid DOM issues, we make sure to add a unique key for each dropdown instance, based on the selected variation's ID.
You’ll see in action—we get a second dropdown for things like size once a color is chosen, but only if there are child options. When the user finally selects a variation with no further children (like a specific size with an SKU), we're ready to show the 'Add to Cart' button. This sets us up for the next step: linking this selection to the actual cart functionality.
So by the end of this episode, you’ll have a smart, dynamic variation selector with nested dropdowns that adapts based on product data and is ready to hook up with your shopping cart.