In this episode, we get the cart's "Remove" button working, so users can actually delete items from their shopping cart. We start by adding a simple wire:click handler in cartItem.blade.php that triggers the remove method in our Livewire component when the button is clicked.
Next, we hop over to the Livewire component class and add the logic to remove the specific variation from our cart. This just involves detaching the correct variation using our cart's relationship—it's a quick, clean database operation that removes the item from the pivot table.
We test it all out and confirm that, yes, the item disappears from the cart and from our database. But when the cart is empty, the interface doesn't look too great, so we tweak the template to add a simple empty state message when there are no items left.
To make this dynamic, we implement an isEmpty method in our cart model/class, and use it in the blade view to toggle between showing the cart contents and the empty state.
There's a bit of finer tuning as we make sure the UI actually refreshes after removing an item, thanks to Livewire events. We keep an eye on performance (a few too many database requests for now, but we can optimize later). We also add a browser notification when an item gets removed, grabbing the product title for the message—just like when we add something to the cart.
By the end, the remove flow is totally functional and user-friendly, with all the right feedback and UI updates for a smooth shopping experience.