Inertia 2.0 Released

The Inertia development team has just announced the highly anticipated release of Inertia 2.0, a significant update that introduces powerful new features including asynchronous requests, deferred props, prefetching, and polling. This upgrade marks a new era of development for single-page applications, making them faster, more interactive, and overwhelmingly user-friendly.

Asynchronous Requests

Historically, Inertia's requests were synchronous, a limitation that has now been overcome with the arrival of asynchronous requests. This fundamental change allows developers to leverage concurrency, enabling smooth operation for features like lazy loading of data as users scroll, infinite scrolling capabilities, and dynamic prefetching of data.

Impact of Prefetching

So, what’s the impact? Prefetching, for example, is a standout feature that enhances the user experience by fetching data in the background. This process kicks in when users hover over a link for more than 75 milliseconds, thus preloading content before it’s actually requested. Developers now have the ability to customize this caching duration using the cacheFor property, with options that could resemble the following Svelte code example:

```svelte import { inertia } from '@inertiajs/svelte' <a href="/users" use:inertia={{ prefetch: true, cacheFor: '1m' }}>Users</a> <a href="/users" use:inertia={{ prefetch: true, cacheFor: '10s' }}>Users</a> <a href="/users" use:inertia={{ prefetch: true, cacheFor: 5000 }}>Users</a> ```

But it doesn’t stop there! Prefetching can also happen during user interactions, such as holding down a mouse button on a clickable link or as components mount, providing an even more seamless experience.

Lazy Loading with WhenVisible Component

Another notable feature in Inertia 2.0 is the ability to lazy load data on scrolling through the newly introduced WhenVisible component. This component, which makes use of the Intersection Observer API, allows developers to show a loading indicator while the data fetches, ensuring that the user sees immediate feedback during any waiting period. For a clear implementation in Svelte 4, consider the following snippet:

```svelte <script> import { WhenVisible } from '@inertiajs/svelte' export let teams export let users </script> <WhenVisible data={['teams', 'users']}> <svelte:fragment slot="fallback"> <div>Loading...</div> </svelte:fragment> </WhenVisible> ```

Additional Features

In addition to lazy loading, Inertia 2.0 includes features like polling, deferred props, and endless scrolling capabilities. Developers are highly encouraged to consult the comprehensive upgrade guide to learn all the intricate details.

Target Audience

Inertia is targeted primarily at back-end developers eager to create single-page applications using frameworks like React, Vue, and Svelte, all while relying on conventional server-side routing and controllers. This streamlined method allows developers to eliminate the intricacies that typically accompany modern single-page apps, such as client-side routing and API building.

How Inertia Works

When a user first loads a page, Inertia delivers a complete HTML response. For subsequent requests, the server delivers a JSON response containing the JavaScript component and its respective data, which is then processed on the client side, efficiently replacing the currently displayed page and adjusting the browser’s history state accordingly.

Full-page and Partial Refreshes

Inertia differentiates between full-page and partial refreshes using specific HTTP headers. If the "X-Inertia" header is missing or set to false, the system recognizes the request as a standard full-page navigation.

Upgrading to Inertia 2.0

To upgrade to Inertia 2.0, developers simply need to install their chosen client-side adapter, such as Vue, React, or Svelte:

```bash npm install @inertiajs/vue3@^2.0 ```

Following this, upgrading the inertiajs/inertia-laravel package to the 2.x development branch is essential:

```bash composer require inertiajs/inertia-laravel:^2.0 ```

Conclusion and Invitation

Inertia 2.0 is setting a new benchmark for single-page application development and promises to revolutionize how developers manage their applications. Don't miss out on enjoying the benefits of this game-changing update!