SSG and fallback render

[armandabric]

Hey zeiters ✋

I'm using the unstable_getStaticProps and the unstable_getStaticPaths functions in my new project. Theses new APi are really effective and powerful.

There is one point in the design that still feel uncertain for me: the current implementation of the fallback mechanism. When using the unstable_getStaticPaths method, next.js is trying to generate once the page without any query parameters.

As unstable_getStaticPaths is used to pre-generate dynamic paths /foo/[bar_id], rendering a page (executing the page component) without any of the data identifier that qualify that page (bar_id) seems counterproductive in the end user point of view. And force us to make or code extremely tolerant or to simply ignore this render: if (router.isFallback) { return null } to avoid any risk.

After reading a lot of the past issues and PRs, I discover some of the rationales behind this choice. The main one is that you want to allow a partial static generations of the possible paths. That a really good ideal. And will make this new feature really powerful.

Another way to allow it could be:

• to serve the page as a lambda that will use the unstable_getStaticProps API and render like usual the component
• to return automatically a configurable placeholder component and render the page on client side
• add a way to optout/optin this fallback parameter (when I'm rending all the page of the site I did not need it)

Can you give us more details on where you want to go with the fallback feature?

Thanks for your amazing work on Next.js!

[Timer]

We're about to land support for disabling the fallback behavior on sites that don't need it:
#10701

[armandabric]

I see that I'm just too on the edge for this feature! 😃 Thaks again for your amazing work