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Intro

A table is meant to display information on the screen, but often you also want to be able to do something with that data. To accomplish this, you can add Actions to your table.

Eloquent Tables has three different types of actions you can add to your table:

  • General table actions
  • Bulk actions
  • Row actions

General table actions​

A general table action is an action that by default is displayed at the top of table next to the search bar. This can of course be modified by modifying the view files if you wish.

General table actions are actions that don't affect any data in the table directly. The most simple example would be a button or a link that opens a page to add a new entry to the table. Let's say you have a table that lists all your users, a general table action could be a button that says 'Add new user' and opens the add user form.

You can add as many table actions as you want to a table.

You can add general table actions by defining a public method called tableActions() on your table. The tableActions() method may return different things depending on your needs. It can be an array of BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action objects, a single BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action if you only want to define one action, an array of BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Collections\ActionCollection objects or a single BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Collections\ActionCollection object.

For more information on how to build an Action or an Action Collection, see their respective documentations.

<?php
// app/Tables/UserTable.php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Tables;

use App\Models\User;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Table;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action;

class UserTable extends Table
{
    public function tableActions(): array
    {
        return [
            new Action(), // Define the action here
        ];
    }
}

Bulk actions​

A bulk action is an action that can affect zero or more rows in the table at once. If you add at least one bulk action to your table, the table will automatically be rendered with an extra column at the start of the table containing select boxes to select the row.

Bulk action are by default rendered above the table on the right side. This can of course be modified by modifying the view files if you wish.

A simple example of a bulk action could be deleting multiple rows at once. A bulk action automatically grabs the keys of all selected rows (Eloquent Models) and adds them to the request as an array of keys with the keys name.

info

The keys are collected by the Eloquent Tables javascript and submitted with the form of the action, so this only applies to bulk actions that send a form. An HTTP intent using the BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Enums\Method::Get method is rendered as a link instead of a form, so it never carries the selected keys.

You can add as many bulk actions as you want to a table.

You can add bulk actions by defining a public method called bulkActions() on your table. The bulkActions() method may return different things depending on your needs. It can be an array of BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action objects, a single BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action if you only want to define one action, an array of BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Collections\ActionCollection objects or a single BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Collections\ActionCollection object.

For more information on how to build an Action or an Action Collection, see their respective documentations.

<?php
// app/Tables/UserTable.php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Tables;

use App\Models\User;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Table;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action;

class UserTable extends Table
{
    public function bulkActions(): array
    {
        return [
            new Action(), // Define the action here
        ];
    }
}

The checkbox column width​

The column holding the select boxes is 5% wide by default. Override bulkActionColumnWidth() on your table to change it, or return null to drop the inline style entirely and size the column from your own stylesheet.

<?php
// app/Tables/UserTable.php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Tables;

use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Table;

class UserTable extends Table
{
    public function bulkActionColumnWidth(): ?string
    {
        return '3rem';
    }
}

The value is used as a CSS length, so any valid unit works.

Row actions​

A row action is an action that affects exactly one row in the table. If you add at least one row action to your table, the table will automatically be rendered with an extra column at the end of the table containing the row actions.

A simple example of a row action could be an 'Edit model' button.

You can add as many row actions as you want to a table.

You can add row actions by defining a public method called rowActions() on your table. The rowActions() method may return different things depending on your needs. It can be an array of BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action objects, a single BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action if you only want to define one action, an array of BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Collections\ActionCollection objects or a single BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Collections\ActionCollection object.

For more information on how to build an Action or an Action Collection, see their respective documentations.

<?php
// app/Tables/UserTable.php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Tables;

use App\Models\User;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Table;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action;

class UserTable extends Table
{
    public function rowActions(): array
    {
        return [
            new Action(), // Define the action here
        ];
    }
}

Dependency injection​

All XXXactions() methods support dependency injection, meaning you can typehint any object in the XXXactions() methods and the Eloquent Tables package will inject that dependency into your method.

<?php
// app/Tables/UserTable.php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Tables;

use App\Models\User;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Table;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action;

class UserTable extends Table
{
    public function tableActions(MyService $service, AnotherService $another): array
    {
        return [
            new Action(), // Define the action here
        ];
    }
}

Route model binding​

The XXXactions() methods also support Route Model Binding in the same way controller methods do. You can typehint any Laravel Model in your XXXactions() methods, and as long as the name of the parameter is the same as the name of the route parameter, the Eloquent Tables package will load the model from the database and inject it into your XXXactions() method.

<?php
// routes/web.php

//... Other Route definitions
Route::get('{team}/users', App\Tables\UserTable::class);
<?php
// app/Tables/UserTable.php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Tables;

use App\Models\Team;
use App\Models\User;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Table;
use BrickNPC\EloquentTables\Actions\Action;

class UserTable extends Table
{
    public function rowActions(Team $team): array
    {
        return [
            new Action('name'), // Define the action here
        ];
    }
}

Navigating to http://my-app.test/1/users will automatically try to load the Team with ID 1 and inject it into the method. If there is no team with the given key, a 404 model not found exception is thrown just like for normal route model binding in Laravel.