Crud: Custom buttons

[tabacitu]

Developers should be able to add custom buttons. Proposed syntax:

$this->crud->addButton('button_name', 'model_function_name'); 
// by default this will place the button before edit and delete
// ex: $this->crud->addButton('send_email', 'getSendEmailButton');

// other methods:
$this->crud->removeButton('send_email');
$this->crud->setButtonsOrder(['edit', 'send_email', 'delete']);

This way, I think, we'll leave a lot of space for customization. On your model, you could do something like:

public function getSendEmailButton() {
    return "<a class='btn btn-warning' href='some_link'><i class='fa fa-envelope'> Send email</a>"; 
}

and you can have your checks or complex logic there. Ex:

• show the button to some users and others not.
• show the button for some entries and others not.
• show different url depending on some model attribute.
• etc.

What I don't like about this is that it does imply you'll be writing some HTML in the model, which is a bit ugly... What do you think? Any better solutions?

Note: I also see the need for custom bulk buttons in the future. But that's another topic.

[axyr]

How about something like this :

$this->crud->addButton(new SendEmailFormAction()); // addButton typehint implements CrudFormActionHandler

// extends CrudFormAction ?
class SendEmailFormAction implements CrudFormActionHandler
{
    public function getView()
    {
        return '<button name="handleRequest" type="submit">Send Email</button>';
    }

    public function handleRequest(CrudRequest $request, Crud $crud)
    {
        // send the email to $crud->getRecord() and use $request->all();
        // redirect, show message, something
    }
}

interface CrudFormActionHandler
{
    public function handleRequest(CrudRequest $request, Crud $crud);
}

[tabacitu]

This is a more correct approach from a programming perspective, I agree.

Hmmm... I think this brings up the question of how abstract do we want the core to be? A lot of questions I get on Github/readme.io/email are very very basic, so I conclude a lot of beginner/intermediate PHP programmers are using Backpack. I'm already spending about 3-4 hours a day answering questions, with only 1000 downloads. I can't imagine what would come after 10.000 downloads or 20.000 downloads and a deeper level of abstraction.

The only solution I see here is that, in order to cater to them too, but also to advanced programmers, we need to keep abstraction as low as possible, because advanced/expert programmers will always be able to customize it however they like, use extra classes, interfaces, traits, whereas beginner/intermmediates won't know how to.

I think we should keep these core principles in mind:

• you should be able to create a CRUD panel with as few files as possible;
• any PHP MVC developer should be able to understand how a CRUD panel works, from beginner to expert;

That being said, I'm not saying no, I'm just wondering which way to go. @Ghitu @cristiantone @mariusconstantin2503 @fede91it ? What do you think?

[axyr]

https://laravel-backpack.readme.io/docs/crud-fields
This will become an array hell:

[   // PageOrLink
    'name' => 'type',
    'label' => "Type",
    'type' => 'page_or_link',
    'page_model' => '\Backpack\PageManager\app\Models\Page'
],
[  // Select
   'label' => "Category",
   'type' => 'select',
   'name' => 'category_id', // the db column for the foreign key
   'entity' => 'category', // the method that defines the relationship in your Model
   'attribute' => 'name', // foreign key attribute that is shown to user
   'model' => "App\Models\Tag" // foreign key model
],
[       // SelectMultiple = n-n relationship (with pivot table)
    'label' => "Tags",
    'type' => 'select_multiple',
    'name' => 'tags', // the method that defines the relationship in your Model
    'entity' => 'tags', // the method that defines the relationship in your Model
    'attribute' => 'name', // foreign key attribute that is shown to user
    'model' => "App\Models\Tag", // foreign key model
    'pivot' => true, // on create&update, do you need to add/delete pivot table entries?
]

No IDE autocompletion possible, so you always have to go to the docs to see the options possible for maybe tens (>100?) of different form fields.

When using objects, you can apply sensible defaults for, name, attribute, label based on the field name, with auto translations like label('MyModel.field_name', 'default label');

Also the model can be guessed for a FormField user_id that it should find the hasOne User();

So you can do :

new DropdownField('user_id', /*optional name*/, /* optional collection or array of items*/);

And by default it will will provide a map of ['id', getTilte()] or something.

That will help beginners a lot, by having real usable sensible defaults by just boilerplating their models and controllers.

[axyr]

Please see these examples how I use your crud right now (work in progress):

https://gist.github.com/axyr/4328d6dba6462d6639347e226182d218
https://gist.github.com/axyr/336934ff114cb943e26bdf9823affd97
https://gist.github.com/axyr/2bf47beaa6af77d7fd48836a694372d2

By applying namingconventions, I only have to create MyModelController extends ModelAdminController to get a list and form view for MyModel.

[codydh]

I'm not sure if this is within your thinking as well, but there's also (IMO) a pretty strong need for custom buttons on a given view, e.g. if I would want to add an "Export to CSV" button that exports the current view to a CSV.

[tabacitu]

Hmm, you're right, @codydh. So the places where you will be able to add buttons should be:

• top of the list view (next to the Add button);
• each line (before or after the Edit and Delete buttons);

So then, I think it's best to define some "stacks" where we have buttons and let developers insert buttons there. The stacks above could be named top_buttons and line_buttons

$this->crud->addButtonFromModelFunction('stack_name', 'button_name', 'model_function_name');
$this->crud->addButtonFromView('stack_name', 'button_name', 'view_path'); 

// other methods:
$this->crud->removeButton('stack_name', 'send_email');
$this->crud->setButtonsOrder('stack_name', ['edit', 'send_email', 'delete']);

This should be pretty future-proof, because

• you can create buttons that just go to a page or buttons that do something with javascript;
• when bulk actions come along, I can easily see the bottom_buttons stack coming too, and the syntax doesn't need to change then;

...or should we just name the stacks top, bottom and line?

[codydh]

This makes complete sense to me.

should we just name the stacks top, bottom and line?

Seems sensible also.

[tabacitu]

Done in 2.1 (dev branch right now). Documentation here.