votong/laravel-mentions

End-to-end mentions in Laravel 5, 6, 7 & 8.

1.0.1 2020-11-21 10:16 UTC

This package is not auto-updated.

Last update: 2024-11-03 11:47:14 UTC


README

Build Status

Abandoned

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to adequately maintain this package. I recommend Xetaravel-Mentions which appears to be better maintained with similar functionality.

In hindsight, this package has tried to do too much to implement this functionality. If you're looking to implement mentions, I think you'd be better off implementing the front-end manually, and abstracting the back-end to that package above or writing your own API.

Hope this helps!

This Laravel >=5.4 package provides an easy way to setup mentions for Eloquent models. It provides the front-end for inserting mentions into content-editable elements, the back-end for associating mentions with models and lastly an elegant way to notify the mentioned models that they have been mentioned.

Here are a few short examples of what you can do:

// Mention a single user
$comment->mention($user);

// Mention a collection of users
$comment->mention($users);

// Handle the form data
$comment->mention($request->mentions);

// Get all mentions, resolved to their models
$comment->mentions();

// Unmention a single user
$comment->unmention($user);

// Unmention a collection of users
$comment->unmention($users);

It handles notifications for you as well. If your mentions config has auto_notify enabled, it will do it for you. If you need to handle the logic yourself, disable auto_notify and explicitly notify the mention, for example:

$mention = $comment->mention($user);
$mention->notify();

Requirements

Installation

You can install this package via composer using this command:

composer require votong/laravel-mentions

If you're using Laravel 5.5 or greater this package will be auto-discovered, however if you're using anything lower than 5.5 you will need to register it the old way:

Next, you must install the service provider in config/app.php:

'providers' => [
    ...
    VoTong\Mentions\MentionServiceProvider::class,
];

Now publish the migration, front-end assets and config:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="VoTong\Mentions\MentionServiceProvider"

After the migration has been published you can create the mentions table by running the migrations:

php artisan migrate

This is the contents of the published config file:

return [
    // The middleware that should be applied to all
    // routes that are registered in this package.
    'middleware' => null,

    // Pools are what you reference on the front-end
    // They contain the model that will be mentioned
    'pools' => [
        'users' => [
            // Model that will be mentioned
            'model' => 'App\User',

            // Filter class that alters the query
            'filter' => null,

            // The column that will be used to search the model
            'column' => 'name',

            // Notification class to use when this model is mentioned
            'notification' => 'App\Notifications\UserMentioned',

            // Automatically notify upon mentions
            'auto_notify' => true
        ]
    ]
];

Usage

First you will need to import Tribute.

npm install tributejs --save-dev

Then include Tribute in your bootstrap.js file and assign it globally.

import Tribute from "tributejs";
window.Tribute = Tribute;

Now in your bootstrap.js file you can import the Mentions class and also assign it globally.

import Mentions from "./laravel-mentions";
window.Mentions = Mentions;

Now to include the styling just import it into your SCSS file.

@import "laravel-mentions";

Now let's setup the form where we'll write a comment that has mentions:

<form method="post" action="{{ route('comments.store') }}">
    <!-- This field is required, it stores the mention data -->
    <input type="hidden" name="mentions" id="mentions" />

    <!-- We write the comment in the div -->
    <!-- The for attribute is a helper to auto-populate the textarea -->
    <textarea class="hide" name="text" id="text"></textarea>
    <div class="has-mentions" contenteditable="true" for="#text"></div>

    <button type="submit">
        Post Comment
    </button>

    <!-- CSRF field for Laravel -->
    {{ csrf_field() }}
</form>

Next add the script to initialize the mentions:

new Mentions({
    // Additional headers to send
    // to possibly authenicate
    // the current user
    http: {
        headers: [
            // {
            //     name: "Authorization",
            //     value: "Bearer your-user-api-token"
            // }
        ]
    },

    // Input element selector
    // Defaults to .has-mentions
    input: ".has-mentions",

    // Output form field selector
    // Defaults to #mentions
    output: "#mentions",

    // Pools
    pools: [
        {
            // Trigger the popup on the @ symbol
            // Defaults to @
            trigger: "@",

            // Pool name from the mentions config
            pool: "users",

            // Same value as the pool's 'column' value
            display: "name",

            // The model's primary key field name
            reference: "id"
        }
    ]
});

Now onto the back-end. Choose the model that you want to assign mentions to. In this example I'll choose Comments. We'll import the trait and use it in the class.

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use VoTong\Mentions\Traits\HasMentions;

class Comment extends Model
{
    use HasMentions;
}

Next switch to the controller for where you store the comment. In this case it's CommentController. Create the comment however you like, and afterwards just call the mention method.

public function store(Request $request)
{
    // Handle the comment creation however you like
    $comment = Comment::create($request->all());

    // Call the mention method with the form mentions data
    $comment->mention($request->mentions);
}

That's it! Now when displaying your comments you can style the .mention-node class that is inserted via Tribute. That same node also has a data-object attribute that contains the pool name and reference value, eg: users:1.

Editing Content With Mentions

You'll most likely need to edit the text content, so it's necessary to restore the mentions list in the form. It's as simple as this:

<input
    type="hidden"
    name="mentions"
    id="mentions"
    value="{{ $comment->mentions()->encoded() }}"
/>

Then on the back-end you can update the model's mentions by doing the following:

$comment
    ->clearMentions()
    ->mention($request->mentions);

Notifications

If you want to use notifications, here's some stuff you may need to know.

  • When a mention is notified, it will use Laravel's built-in Notification trait to make the notification. That means the model class defined in the pool's config must have the Notifiable trait.
  • It will use the notification class defined in the pool's config, so you can handle it differently for each one.
  • The data stored in the notification will always be the model that did the mention, for example $comment->mention($user) will store $comment in the data field.
  • __construct method of notification class gets the model that did the mention as an argument, for example $comment->mention($user) will get $comment on the constructor.

Filters

You might want to apply some custom filters to the model when it retrieves the records. To do this just create a class somewhere in your app, then add it to the mention config:

return [
    'pools' => [
        'users' => [
            ...
            'filter' => 'App\Filters\UserFilter',
            ...
        ]
    ]
];

This is what your filter class should look like. It just has one static method called handle that takes the query as an argument, and must return the query.

<?php

namespace App\Filters;

class UserFilter
{
    /**
     * Handles the filtering and returns the updated query.
     *
     * @return Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder
     */
    public static function handle($query)
    {
        // Apply your filters here!
        return $query->where('someColumn', 'someValue');
    }
}

Resources

If you'd like to change the JSON response that the /api/mentions route returns, you can create your own resource class. To begin with head over to the Laravel docs to create and setup a resource class.

Once you have your resource class, simply add it to your mention config in one or more of your pools, such as:

return [
    'pools' => [
        'users' => [
            ...
            'resource' => 'App\Resources\UserCollection',
            ...
        ]
    ]
];

Middleware

If you'd like you can optionally add middleware to the /api/mentions route. This can be useful in case you want to protect the route behind an authentication guard. Head over to the Laravel docs find out more about middleware.

return [
    'middleware' => [
        'your-middleware-here',
    ],
    //
];