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David Nguyen
David Nguyen

Posted on • Originally published at eplus.dev on

Laravel Love: Expressing Emotions in Your Application

#laravel

Laravel Love is the emotional part of the application. It lets people express how they feel about the content. Make any model reachable in minutes!

There are many different implementations in modern applications:

  • GitHub Reactions

  • Facebook Reactions

  • YouTube Likes

  • Slack Reactions

  • Reddit Votes

  • Medium Claps

  • Disqus Reactions

This package was developed with the mind that it should cover all the possible use cases and be viable in enterprise applications.

Features

  • Fully customizable types of reactions.

  • Any model can react to models and receive reactions at the same time.

  • Reactants can have many types of reactions.

  • Reacter can add many reactions to one reactant.

  • Reacter can react with custom float rate value.

  • Reaction counters with detailed aggregated data for each reactant.

  • Reaction totals with total aggregated data for each reactant.

  • Works with any database id column type.

  • Sort retractable models by reaction type count.

  • Sort retractable models by reaction total count.

  • Sort retractable models by reaction total weight.

  • Events for added & removed reactions.

  • Artisan command love:recount {model?} {type?} to re-fetch reaction stats.

  • Artisan command love:reaction-type-add to add reaction types.

  • Artisan command love:setup-reacterable to register Reacterable models.

  • Artisan command love:setup-reactable to write Reactable models.

  • Customizable database storage.

System Design

Glossary

Reaction the response that reveals Reacter's feelings or attitude to the Reactant.

Reacter one who reacts.

Reacterable model which can act as Reacter on the application level.

Example: User, Person, Organization, etc

Reactant subject which could receive Reactions.

Reactable model which can act as Reactant on the application level.

Example: Post, Comment, User, etc

ReactionType type of the emotional response.

Example: Like, Dislike, Love, Sad, etc

Reaction Rate the velocity of an reactant becoming popular.

ReactionType Mass amount of weight added to the Reaction.

Reaction Weight ReactionType Mass * Reaction Rate.

ReactionCounter aggregated statistical values of ReactionTypes related to the Reactant.

ReactionTotal aggregated statistical values of total reactions count & their weight related to the Reactant.

Database Schema

Implementation Highlights

Frameworks Integration

  • Designed to work with Laravel Eloquent models.

Code Concepts

  • Strict typed code.

  • Using Null Object design pattern instead of null values.

  • Non extendable classes declared as final.

  • Using contracts to keep high customization capabilities.

  • Using traits to get functionality out of the box.

  • Throws only custom exceptions with LoveThrowable interface.

  • Using Facade design pattern to expose simpler high-level API.

Database

  • Using database foreign keys to keep data integrity.

  • All database tables have love_ prefix.

Testing

  • Covered with PHPUnit tests.

Follows PHP Standard Recommendations

System Requirements

Laravel Love has a few requirements you should be aware of before installing:

Installation Instructions

Pull in the package through Composer.

composer require cybercog/laravel-love
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Run database migrations.

php artisan migrate
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Manage Reaction Types

Reaction type required to react to content.

Create a list of default reaction types (Like & Dislike) or create your own build!

Add Default Types 

php artisan love:reaction-type-add --default
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In Artisan execute love:reaction-type-add command with --default flag to add Like and Dislike types to application. Reactant's total mass increments +1 with each Like and decrements -1 with Dislike.

📘 If any of Like or Dislike types already exists in application - command will add only missing one.

Add Custom Type 

php artisan love:reaction-type-add
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📘Type names transformed to StudlyCase.

Name very-good will be converted to VeryGood.

Pass name & mass arguments in command line to skip interaction.

php artisan love:reaction-type-add --name=Hate --mass=-4
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Setup Reacterable

User model cannot directly react to the content. It should delegate this job to related Reacter model.

Code Changes

  1. Declare that model implements Cog\Contracts\Love\Reacterable\Models\Reacterable contract.

  2. Use Cog\Laravel\Love\Reacterable\Models\Traits\Reacterable trait or implement each method of the contract by yourself.

As result you will have:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Cog\Contracts\Love\Reacterable\Models\Reacterable as ReacterableInterface;
use Cog\Laravel\Love\Reacterable\Models\Traits\Reacterable;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;

class User extends Authenticatable implements ReacterableInterface
{
    use Reacterable;
}
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Database Changes

  1. Run set up reacterable command. 
php artisan love:setup-reacterable --model="App\Models\User"
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📘Add --nullable flag if all models of this type must NOT be reacterable:

php artisan love:setup-reacterable --model="App\Models\User" --nullable
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📘Manual migration creation described in Custom Setup Migrations.

  1. Run migration. 
php artisan migrate
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Creating Reacter Models

If you are integrating package on already existing user base you need to register your Reacterable models as Reacters.

php artisan love:register-reacters --model="App\Models\User"
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This command will create Reacter model for each User model.

Setup Reactable

Comment model cannot receive reactions directly. It should delegate this job to related Reactant model.

Add Reactable interface & trait to your Comment model code and run artisan setup command to make a link with Reactant model.

Code Changes

  1. Declare that model implements Cog\Contracts\Love\Reactable\Models\Reactable contract.

  2. Use Cog\Laravel\Love\Reactable\Models\Traits\Reactable trait or implement each method of the contract by yourself.

As result you will have:

PHP

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Cog\Contracts\Love\Reactable\Models\Reactable as ReactableInterface;
use Cog\Laravel\Love\Reactable\Models\Traits\Reactable;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Comment extends Model implements ReactableInterface
{
    use Reactable;
}
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Database Changes

  1. Run set up reactable command. 
php artisan love:setup-reactable --model="App\Models\Comment"
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📘 Add --nullable flag if all models of this type must NOT be reactable:

php artisan love:setup-reactable --model="App\Models\Comment" --nullable
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📘 Manual migration creation described in Custom Setup Migrations.

  1. Run migration. 
php artisan migrate
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Creating Reactant Models

If you are integrating package on already existing user base you need to register your Reactable models as Reactants.

php artisan love:register-reactants --model="App\Models\Comment"
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This command will create Reactant model for each Comment model.

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