Conditionally rendering parent element, keep inner html

Question

Is there any built-in way to go about conditionally showing a parent element?

To illustrate:

<a v-show-but-keep-inner="someCondition">
    <span>This is always rendered no matter what</span>
</a

Answer 1

I think it's a job for custom directive. I made this one as a quick POC:

Vue.directive('showButKeepInner', {
  bind(el, bindings) {
    bindings.def.wrap = function(el) {
      // Find all next siblings with data-moved and move back into el
      while (el.nextElementSibling && el.nextElementSibling.dataset.moved) {
        el.appendChild(el.nextElementSibling).removeAttribute('data-moved')
      }
      el.hidden = false
    }

    bindings.def.unwrap = function(el) {
      // Move all children of el outside and mark them with data-moved attr
      Array.from(el.children).forEach(child => {
        el.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', child).setAttribute('data-moved', true)
      })
      el.hidden = true
    }
  },

  inserted(el, bindings) {
    bindings.def[bindings.value ? 'wrap' : 'unwrap'](el)
  },

  update(el, bindings) {
    bindings.def[bindings.value ? 'wrap' : 'unwrap'](el)
  }
})

new Vue({
  el: '#app',
  data: {
    someCondition: false
  }
})

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/vue/2.1.10/vue.min.js"></script>

<div id="app">
  <p>
    <button v-on:click="someCondition = !someCondition">{{ someCondition }}</button>
  </p>
  <a v-show-but-keep-inner="someCondition" href="/">
    <span>This is always rendered no matter what</span>
  </a>
</div>