Conditional display in Vue InstantSearch

This guide describes what to do when there are no results or when there’s no query. Sometimes, though, users may not get any hits if their device can’t access the network or the network connection is slow.

If you want to feature content in your search results based on a set of conditions, you can use Algolia Rules to:

• Feature specific data from within your records to, for example, show promotional prices during a sales period
• Display advertisements or promotional banners.

To learn how to suppress InstantSearch’s initial search query, check out the conditional requests guide.

Handling no results

Since not all queries lead to results, it’s essential to let users know when this happens by providing hints on how to adjust their query.

Display a message

The easiest way to display a fallback message when a query doesn’t return results is to use the ais-state-results widget.

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<ais-state-results>
  <template v-slot="{ results: { hits, query } }">
    <ais-hits v-show="hits.length > 0" />
    <div v-show="hits.length === 0">
      No results have been found for {{ query }}.
    </div>
  </template>
</ais-state-results>

This also works with ais-infinite-hits.

Follow best practices for showing and hiding Vue InstantSearch widgets to prevent undesirable additional search requests.

Let users reset filters and facets

If users apply too many filters, they may not find any results. You should account for this by letting them reset filters from the “no results” display so they can start another search.

Do this with the ais-clear-refinements widget. To clear the query, add :excluded-attributes="[]".

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<ais-state-results>
  <template v-slot="{ results: { hits } }">
    <ais-hits v-if="hits.length > 0" />
    <div v-else>
      No results have been found for {{ query }}.
      <ais-clear-refinements :excluded-attributes="[]">
        <template v-slot:resetLabel>Clear all refinements</template>
      </ais-clear-refinements>
    </div>
  </template>
</ais-state-results>

You can also use ais-current-refinements to show currently applied filters.

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<ais-state-results>
  <template v-slot="{ results: { hits } }">
    <ais-hits v-show="hits.length > 0" />
    <div v-show="hits.length === 0">
      No results have been found for {{ query }}.
      <ais-current-refinements :excluded-attributes="[]" />
    </div>
  </template>
</ais-state-results>

Handling empty queries

By default, InstantSearch always shows you results, even when the query is empty. Depending on your use case and how you build your UI, you may only want to show results when there’s a query.

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<ais-state-results>
  <template v-slot="{ state: { query } }">
    <ais-hits v-show="query.length > 0" />
  </template>
</ais-state-results>

Follow best practices for showing and hiding Vue InstantSearch widgets to prevent undesirable additional search requests.