Implementing Pagination

There are a lot of JavaScript libraries and frameworks that we can quickly pull into our project to get ourselves up and running with pagination. However, it can also be achieved in vanilla JavaScript without any framework or library. In this lesson, we’re going to take a look at how to implement a “load more” component in Astro using only vanilla JavaScript.

Pagination

Before we begin, let’s clarify what we mean by pagination, why it’s useful, and what types of pagination we can implement. Pagination is the act of generating separate pages based on a large set of data. It’s about dividing the larger set into smaller, more manageable pieces.

Purposes and benefits of pagination

Pagination plays an important role in improving both user experience and page performance. By dividing content into different pages, we declutter the page to allow users to only see a select few initially. It also helps with faster page loads because browsers don’t have to render all data at once. Instead, only a subset of the full data is rendered on the page at any given time.

Types of pagination

There are different forms of pagination we can talk about. The most common types include the following:

• Numeric pagination: The simplest and most common form of pagination is when each page is represented with a number. Users can click the numbers to navigate to different pages.

• Infinite scroll: Infinite scroll pagination is most commonly used by social media platforms. It eliminates the need for interaction from the user, presenting them with an infinite flow of pages. These pages are dynamically loaded when the user scrolls to the bottom of the page.

• The “Load More” button: Load more buttons are similar to infinite scroll pagination but they require interaction from the user. Pages are only loaded after users click a button, usually titled “Load More.”

Implementing the “Load More” button

In this lesson, we’ll use the “Load More” button approach. It’s a good middle ground between the numeric and infinite scroll pagination. It simplifies the user interface and presents only one pagination option to the user while still requiring action. This ensures that users can still easily see content below the page. Infinite scroll prevents this by constantly loading new pages in front of the user automatically.

Displaying the latest posts

To create the pagination functionality, we’ll display the latest posts in a grid on the home page. To display the latest posts, we’re going to create a new component called Latest. In the code widget below, inside src/pages/index.astro, we call this component inside the Layout ...