In this episode, we dive into debouncing user input in a Vue 3 application. We kick things off by explaining what debouncing actually is—so you’ll know exactly why you’d want to use it—then get hands-on with a simple form example.
We start by creating a reactive form using Vue's reactive method and v-model to handle user inputs for first and last names. The goal: automatically send those form changes to an API, so users don’t have to click a separate "Submit" button every time. However, without debouncing, this would fire off way too many API requests with every single keystroke!
To solve that, we bring in lodash.debounce—a handy little helper from the lodash library—and show a couple ways to debounce your functions in Vue. We start with directly debouncing inside a watcher (not the cleanest approach), then refactor to debounce only the actual "save" function. This keeps your watcher clean and makes the debounce logic reusable and maintainable.
Whether you didn’t know what debouncing was before, or you just wanted to see the best way to use it in Vue 3, you’ll walk away knowing how to cleanly and efficiently debounce API calls from form input changes. We wrap up by demonstrating the end result: a smooth, practical auto-save feature that’s kind to your API. 🚀