Quickstart: Ionic Vue

This example provides the steps to build a basic user management app. It includes:

• Supabase Database: a Postgres database for storing your user data.
• Supabase Auth: users can sign in with magic links (no passwords, only email).
• Supabase Storage: users can upload a photo.
• Row Level Security: data is protected so that individuals can only access their own data.
• Instant APIs: APIs will be automatically generated when you create your database tables.

By the end of this guide you'll have an app which allows users to login and update some basic profile details:

GitHub#

Should you get stuck while working through the guide, refer to this repo.

Project set up

Before we start building we're going to set up our Database and API. This is as simple as starting a new Project in Supabase and then creating a "schema" inside the database.

Create a project#

1. Go to app.supabase.com.
2. Click on "New Project".
3. Enter your project details.
4. Wait for the new database to launch.

Set up the database schema#

Now we are going to set up the database schema. We can use the "User Management Starter" quickstart in the SQL Editor, or you can just copy/paste the SQL from below and run it yourself.

Get the API Keys#

Now that you've created some database tables, you are ready to insert data using the auto-generated API. We just need to get the URL and anon key from the API settings.

1. Go to the Settings page in the Dashboard.
2. Click API in the sidebar.
3. Find your API URL, anon, and service_role keys on this page.

Building the App#

Let's start building the Vue app from scratch.

Initialize an Ionic Vue app#

We can use the Ionic CLI to initialize an app called supabase-ionic-vue:

1npm install -g @ionic/cli
2ionic start supabase-ionic-vue blank --type vue
3cd supabase-ionic-vue

Then let's install the only additional dependency: supabase-js

1npm install @supabase/supabase-js

And finally we want to save the environment variables in a .env. All we need are the API URL and the anon key that you copied earlier.

1VUE_APP_SUPABASE_URL=YOUR_SUPABASE_URL
2VUE_APP_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=YOUR_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY

Now that we have the API credentials in place, let's create a helper file to initialize the Supabase client. These variables will be exposed on the browser, and that's completely fine since we have Row Level Security enabled on our Database.

import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js';

const supabaseUrl = process.env.VUE_APP_SUPABASE_URL as string;
const supabaseAnonKey = process.env.VUE_APP_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY as string;

export const supabase = createClient(supabaseUrl, supabaseAnonKey);

Set up a Login route#

Let's set up a Vue component to manage logins and sign ups. We'll use Magic Links, so users can sign in with their email without using passwords.

<template>
  <ion-page>
    <ion-header>
      <ion-toolbar>
        <ion-title>Login</ion-title>
      </ion-toolbar>
    </ion-header>

    <ion-content>
      <div class="ion-padding">
        <h1>Supabase + Ionic Vue</h1>
        <p>Sign in via magic link with your email below</p>
      </div>
      <ion-list inset="true">
        <form @submit.prevent="handleLogin">
          <ion-item>
            <ion-label position="stacked">Email</ion-label>
            <ion-input v-model="email" name="email" autocomplete type="email"></ion-input>
          </ion-item>
          <div class="ion-text-center">
            <ion-button type="submit" fill="clear">Login</ion-button>
          </div>
        </form>
      </ion-list>
      <p>{{email}}</p>
    </ion-content>
  </ion-page>
</template>

<script lang="ts">
  import { supabase } from '../supabase'
  import {
    IonContent,
    IonHeader,
    IonPage,
    IonTitle,
    IonToolbar,
    IonList,
    IonItem,
    IonLabel,
    IonInput,
    IonButton,
    toastController,
    loadingController,
  } from '@ionic/vue'
  import { defineComponent, ref } from 'vue'

  export default defineComponent({
    name: 'LoginPage',
    components: {
      IonContent,
      IonHeader,
      IonPage,
      IonTitle,
      IonToolbar,
      IonList,
      IonItem,
      IonLabel,
      IonInput,
      IonButton,
    },
    setup() {
      const email = ref('')
      const handleLogin = async () => {
        const loader = await loadingController.create({})
        const toast = await toastController.create({ duration: 5000 })

        try {
          await loader.present()
          const { error } = await supabase.auth.signIn({ email: email.value })

          if (error) throw error

          toast.message = 'Check your email for the login link!'
          await toast.present()
        } catch (error: any) {
          toast.message = error.error_description || error.message
          await toast.present()
        } finally {
          await loader.dismiss()
        }
      }
      return { handleLogin, email }
    },
  })
</script>

Account page#

After a user is signed in we can allow them to edit their profile details and manage their account.

Let's create a new component for that called Account.vue.

<template>
  <ion-page>
    <ion-header>
      <ion-toolbar>
        <ion-title>Account</ion-title>
      </ion-toolbar>
    </ion-header>

    <ion-content>
      <form @submit.prevent="updateProfile">
        <ion-item>
          <ion-label>
            <p>Email</p>
            <p>{{ session?.user?.email }}</p>
          </ion-label>
        </ion-item>

        <ion-item>
          <ion-label position="stacked">Name</ion-label>
          <ion-input type="text" name="username" v-model="profile.username"></ion-input>
        </ion-item>

        <ion-item>
          <ion-label position="stacked">Website</ion-label>
          <ion-input type="url" name="website" v-model="profile.website"></ion-input>
        </ion-item>
        <div class="ion-text-center">
          <ion-button fill="clear" type="submit">Update Profile</ion-button>
        </div>
      </form>

      <div class="ion-text-center">
        <ion-button fill="clear" @click="signOut">Log Out</ion-button>
      </div>
    </ion-content>
  </ion-page>
</template>

<script lang="ts">
  import { store } from '@/store'
  import { supabase } from '@/supabase'
  import {
    IonContent,
    IonHeader,
    IonPage,
    IonTitle,
    IonToolbar,
    toastController,
    loadingController,
    IonInput,
    IonItem,
    IonButton,
    IonLabel,
  } from '@ionic/vue'
  import { User } from '@supabase/supabase-js'
  import { defineComponent, onMounted, ref } from 'vue'
  export default defineComponent({
    name: 'AccountPage',
    components: {
      IonContent,
      IonHeader,
      IonPage,
      IonTitle,
      IonToolbar,
      IonInput,
      IonItem,
      IonButton,
      IonLabel,
    },
    setup() {
      const session = ref(supabase.auth.session())
      const profile = ref({
        username: '',
        website: '',
        avatar_url: '',
      })
      const user = store.user as User
      async function getProfile() {
        const loader = await loadingController.create({})
        const toast = await toastController.create({ duration: 5000 })
        await loader.present()
        try {
          let { data, error, status } = await supabase
            .from('profiles')
            .select(`username, website, avatar_url`)
            .eq('id', user.id)
            .single()

          if (error && status !== 406) throw error

          if (data) {
            console.log(data)
            profile.value = {
              username: data.username,
              website: data.website,
              avatar_url: data.avatar_url,
            }
          }
        } catch (error: any) {
          toast.message = error.message
          await toast.present()
        } finally {
          await loader.dismiss()
        }
      }

      const updateProfile = async () => {
        const loader = await loadingController.create({})
        const toast = await toastController.create({ duration: 5000 })
        try {
          await loader.present()
          const updates = {
            id: user.id,
            ...profile.value,
            updated_at: new Date(),
          }
          //
          let { error } = await supabase.from('profiles').upsert(updates, {
            returning: 'minimal', // Don't return the value after inserting
          })
          //
          if (error) throw error
        } catch (error: any) {
          toast.message = error.message
          await toast.present()
        } finally {
          await loader.dismiss()
        }
      }

      async function signOut() {
        const loader = await loadingController.create({})
        const toast = await toastController.create({ duration: 5000 })
        await loader.present()
        try {
          let { error } = await supabase.auth.signOut()
          if (error) throw error
        } catch (error: any) {
          toast.message = error.message
          await toast.present()
        } finally {
          await loader.dismiss()
        }
      }

      onMounted(() => {
        getProfile()
      })
      return { signOut, profile, session, updateProfile }
    },
  })
</script>

Launch!#

Now that we have all the components in place, let's update App.vue and our routes:

import { createRouter, createWebHistory } from '@ionic/vue-router'
import { RouteRecordRaw } from 'vue-router'
import LoginPage from '../views/Login.vue'
import AccountPage from '../views/Account.vue'
const routes: Array<RouteRecordRaw> = [
  {
    path: '/',
    name: 'Login',
    component: LoginPage,
  },
  {
    path: '/account',
    name: 'Account',
    component: AccountPage,
  },
]

const router = createRouter({
  history: createWebHistory(process.env.BASE_URL),
  routes,
})

export default router

<template>
  <ion-app>
    <ion-router-outlet />
  </ion-app>
</template>

<script lang="ts">
  import { IonApp, IonRouterOutlet, useIonRouter } from '@ionic/vue'
  import { defineComponent } from 'vue'

  import { store } from './store'
  import { supabase } from './supabase'

  export default defineComponent({
    name: 'App',
    components: {
      IonApp,
      IonRouterOutlet,
    },
    setup() {
      const router = useIonRouter()
      store.user = supabase.auth.user() ?? {}
      supabase.auth.onAuthStateChange((_, session) => {
        store.user = session?.user ?? {}
        if (session?.user) {
          router.replace('/account')
        }
      })
    },
  })
</script>

Once that's done, run this in a terminal window:

1ionic serve

And then open the browser to localhost:3000 and you should see the completed app.

Bonus: Profile photos#

Every Supabase project is configured with Storage for managing large files like photos and videos.

Create an upload widget#

First install two packages in order to interact with the user's camera.

1npm install @ionic/pwa-elements @capacitor/camera

CapacitorJS is a cross platform native runtime from Ionic that enables web apps to be deployed through the app store and provides access to native deavice API.

Ionic PWA elements is a companion package that will polyfill certain browser APIs that provide no user interface with custom Ionic UI.

With those packages installed we can update our main.ts to include an additional bootstapping call for the Ionic PWA Elements.

import { createApp } from 'vue'
import App from './App.vue'
import router from './router'

import { IonicVue } from '@ionic/vue'
/* Core CSS required for Ionic components to work properly */
import '@ionic/vue/css/ionic.bundle.css'

/* Theme variables */
import './theme/variables.css'

import { defineCustomElements } from '@ionic/pwa-elements/loader'
defineCustomElements(window)
const app = createApp(App).use(IonicVue).use(router)

router.isReady().then(() => {
  app.mount('#app')
})

Then create an AvatarComponent.

<template>
  <div class="avatar">
    <div class="avatar_wrapper" @click="uploadAvatar">
      <img v-if="avatarUrl" :src="avatarUrl" />
      <ion-icon v-else name="person" class="no-avatar"></ion-icon>
    </div>
  </div>
</template>

<script lang="ts">
  import { ref, toRefs, watch, defineComponent } from 'vue'
  import { supabase } from '../supabase'
  import { Camera, CameraResultType } from '@capacitor/camera'
  import { IonIcon } from '@ionic/vue'
  import { person } from 'ionicons/icons'
  export default defineComponent({
    name: 'AppAvatar',
    props: { path: String },
    emits: ['upload', 'update:path'],
    components: { IonIcon },
    setup(prop, { emit }) {
      const { path } = toRefs(prop)
      const avatarUrl = ref('')

      const downloadImage = async () => {
        try {
          const { data, error } = await supabase.storage.from('avatars').download(path.value)
          if (error) throw error
          avatarUrl.value = URL.createObjectURL(data!)
        } catch (error: any) {
          console.error('Error downloading image: ', error.message)
        }
      }

      const uploadAvatar = async () => {
        try {
          const photo = await Camera.getPhoto({
            resultType: CameraResultType.DataUrl,
          })
          if (photo.dataUrl) {
            const file = await fetch(photo.dataUrl)
              .then((res) => res.blob())
              .then((blob) => new File([blob], 'my-file', { type: `image/${photo.format}` }))

            const fileName = `${Math.random()}-${new Date().getTime()}.${photo.format}`
            let { error: uploadError } = await supabase.storage
              .from('avatars')
              .upload(fileName, file)
            if (uploadError) {
              throw uploadError
            }
            emit('update:path', fileName)
            emit('upload')
          }
        } catch (error) {
          console.log(error)
        }
      }

      watch(path, () => {
        if (path.value) downloadImage()
      })

      return { avatarUrl, uploadAvatar, person }
    },
  })
</script>
<style>
  .avatar {
    display: block;
    margin: auto;
    min-height: 150px;
  }
  .avatar .avatar_wrapper {
    margin: 16px auto 16px;
    border-radius: 50%;
    overflow: hidden;
    height: 150px;
    aspect-ratio: 1;
    background: var(--ion-color-step-50);
    border: thick solid var(--ion-color-step-200);
  }
  .avatar .avatar_wrapper:hover {
    cursor: pointer;
  }
  .avatar .avatar_wrapper ion-icon.no-avatar {
    width: 100%;
    height: 115%;
  }
  .avatar img {
    display: block;
    object-fit: cover;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
  }
</style>

Add the new widget#

And then we can add the widget to the Account page:

<template>
  <ion-page>
    <ion-header>
      <ion-toolbar>
        <ion-title>Account</ion-title>
      </ion-toolbar>
    </ion-header>

    <ion-content>
      <avatar v-model:path="profile.avatar_url" @upload="updateProfile"></avatar>
...
</template>
<script lang="ts">
import Avatar from '../components/Avatar.vue';
export default defineComponent({
  name: 'AccountPage',
  components: {
    Avatar,
    ....
  }

</script>

Next steps#

At this stage you have a fully functional application!

• Got a question? Ask here.
• Sign in: app.supabase.com