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Smart Fields
What is a Smart Field?
A field that displays a computed value in your collection.
A Smart Field is a column that displays processed-on-the-fly data. It can be as simple as concatenating attributes to make them human friendly, or more complex (e.g. total of orders).
Creating a Smart Field
On our Live Demo, the very simple Smart Field fullname is available on the customers collection.
Very often, the business logic behind the Smart Field is more complex and must be asynchronous. To do that, please have a look at this section.
On our Live Demo, the very simple Smart Field fullname is available on the Customer collection.
/lib/forest_liana/collections/customer.rb
class Forest::Customer
include ForestLiana::Collection
collection :Customer
field :fullname, type: 'String' do
"#{object.firstname} #{object.lastname}"
end
end
Very often, the business logic behind the Smart Field is more complex and must interact with the database. Here’s an example with the Smart Field full_address on the Customer collection.
/lib/forest_liana/collections/customer.rb
class Forest::Customer
include ForestLiana::Collection
collection :Customer
field :full_address, type: 'String' do
address = Address.find_by(customer_id: object.id)
"#{address[:address_line_1]} #{address[:address_line_2]} #{address[:address_city]} #{address[:country]}"
end
end
On our Live Demo, the very simple Smart Field fullname is available on the Customer collection.
Ensure the file app/forest/__init__.py exists and contains the import of the previous defined class :
app/forest/__init__.py
from app.forest.customer import CustomerForest
Very often, the business logic behind the Smart Field is more complex and must interact with the database. Here’s an example with the Smart Field full_address on the Customer collection.
On our Live Demo, the very simple Smart Field fullname is available on the Customer model.
app/Models/Customer.php
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\Concerns\ForestCollection;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\SmartFeatures\SmartField;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
/**
* Class Customer
*/
class Customer extends Model
{
use HasFactory, ForestCollection;
/**
* @return SmartField
*/
public function fullname(): SmartField
{
return $this->smartField(['type' => 'String'])
->get(fn() => $this->firstname . '-' . $this->lastname);
}
}
Very often, the business logic behind the Smart Field is more complex and must interact with the database. Here’s an example with the Smart Field full_address on the Customer model.
app/Models/Customer.php
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\Concerns\ForestCollection;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\SmartFeatures\SmartField;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
/**
* Class Customer
*/
class Customer extends Model
{
use HasFactory, ForestCollection;
/**
* @return SmartField
*/
public function fullAddress(): SmartField
{
return $this->smartField(['type' => 'String'])
->get(
function () {
$address = Address::firstWhere('customer_id', $this->id);
return "$address->address_line1 $address->address_line2 $address->address_city $address->country";
}
);
}
}
The collection name must be the same as the model name.
Updating a Smart Field
By default, your Smart Field is considered as read-only. If you want to update a Smart Field, you just need to write the logic to “unzip” the data. Note that the set method should always return the object it’s working on. In the example hereunder, the customer object is returned including only the modified data.
For security reasons, the fullname Smart field will remain read-only, even after you implement the set method. To edit it, disable read-only mode in the field settings.
By default, your Smart Field is considered as read-only. If you want to update a Smart Field, you just need to write the logic to “unzip” the data. Note that the set method should always return the object it’s working on. In the example hereunder, the customer record is returned.
For security reasons, the fullname Smart field will remain read-only, even after you implement the set method. To edit it, disable read-only mode in the field settings.
By default, your Smart Field is considered as read-only. If you want to update a Smart Field, you just need to write the logic to “unzip” the data. Note that the set method should always return the object it’s working on. In the example hereunder, the user_params is returned is returned including only the modified data.
/lib/forest_liana/collections/customer.rb
class Forest::Customer
include ForestLiana::Collection
collection :Customer
set_fullname = lambda do |user_params, fullname|
fullname = fullname.split
user_params[:firstname] = fullname.first
user_params[:lastname] = fullname.last
# Returns a hash of the updated values you want to persist.
user_params
end
field :fullname, type: 'String', set: set_fullname do
"#{object.firstname} #{object.lastname}"
end
end
For security reasons, the fullname Smart field will remain read-only, even after you implement the set method. To edit it, disable read-only mode in the field settings.
By default, your Smart Field is considered as read-only. If you want to update a Smart Field, you just need to write the logic to “unzip” the data. Note that the set method should always return the object it’s working on. In the example hereunder, the customer object is returned including only the modified data.
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\Concerns\ForestCollection;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\SmartFeatures\SmartField;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
/**
* Class Customer
*/
class Customer extends Model
{
use HasFactory, ForestCollection;
/**
* @return SmartField
*/
public function fullname(): SmartField
{
return $this->smartField(['type' => 'String'])
->get(fn() => $this->firstname . ' ' . $this->lastname)
->set(
function ($value) {
[$firstname, $lastname] = explode(' ', $value);
$this->firstname = $firstname;
$this->lastname = $lastname;
return $this;
}
);
}
}
Searching, Sorting and Filtering on a Smart Field
To perform a search on a Smart Field, you also need to write the logic to “unzip” the data, then the search query which is specific to your zipping. In the example hereunder, the firstname and lastname are searched separately after having been unzipped.
class Forest::Customer
include ForestLiana::Collection
collection :Customer
search_fullname = lambda do |query, search|
firstname, lastname = search.split
# Injects your new filter into the WHERE clause.
query.where_clause.send(:predicates)[0] << " OR (firstname = '#{firstname}' AND lastname = '#{lastname}')"
query
end
field :fullname, type: 'String', set: set_fullname, search: search_fullname do
"#{object.firstname} #{object.lastname}"
end
end
class Forest::Customer
include ForestLiana::Collection
collection :Customer
filter_fullname = lambda do |condition, where|
first_word = condition['value'] && condition['value'].split[0]
second_word = condition['value'] && condition['value'].split[1]
case condition['operator']
when 'equal'
"firstname = '#{first_word}' AND lastname = '#{second_word}'"
when 'ends_with'
if second_word.nil?
"lastname LIKE '%#{first_word}'"
else
"firstname LIKE '%#{first_word}' AND lastname = '#{second_word}'"
end
# ... And so on with the other operators not_equal, starts_with, etc.
end
end
field :fullname, type: 'String', is_read_only: false, is_required: true, is_filterable: true, filter: filter_fullname do
"#{object.firstname} #{object.lastname}"
end
end
<?php
namespace App\Models;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\Concerns\ForestCollection;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\SmartFeatures\SmartAction;
use ForestAdmin\LaravelForestAdmin\Services\SmartFeatures\SmartField;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\HasMany;
/**
* Class Customer
*/
class Customer extends Model
{
use HasFactory, ForestCollection;
/**
* @return SmartField
*/
public function fullname(): SmartField
{
return $this->smartField(['type' => 'String'])
->get(fn() => $this->firstname . ' ' . $this->lastname)
->set(
function ($value) {
[$firstname, $lastname] = explode(' ', $value);
$this->firstname = $firstname;
$this->lastname = $lastname;
return $this;
}
)
->filter(
function (Builder $query, $value, string $operator, string $aggregator) {
$data = explode(' ', $value);
switch ($operator) {
case 'equal':
$query->where(
fn($query) => $query->where('firstname', $data[0])
->where('lastname', $data[1]),
null,
null,
$aggregator
);
break;
case 'ends_with':
if ($data[1] === null) {
$query->where(
fn($query) => $query->whereRaw("lastname LIKE ?", ['%' . $data[0] . '%']),
null,
null,
$aggregator
);
} else {
$query->where(
fn($query) => $query->whereRaw("firstname LIKE ?", ['%' . $value . '%'])
->whereRaw("lastname LIKE ?", ['%' . $value . '%']),
null,
null,
$aggregator
);
}
break;
//... And so on with the other operators not_equal, starts_with, etc.
default:
throw new ForestException(
"Unsupported operator: $operator"
);
}
return $query;
}
);
}
}
Make sure you set the option isFilterable: true in the field definition of your code. Then, you will be able to toggle the "Filtering enabled" option in the browser, in your Fields Settings.
Sorting
Sorting on a Smart Field is not natively supported in Forest Admin. However you can check out those guides:
To optimize your smart field performance, we recommend using a mechanism of batching and caching data requests.
Implement them using the DataLoader which is a generic utility to be used as part of your application's data fetching layer to provide a simplified and consistent API over various remote data sources.
