Building a Social Network with Laravel and Stream? Easy!

This article builds on a previous tutorial about adding the "follow" feature to a Laravel application using Stream. This part focuses on configuring models for activity tracking, exploring Stream's feed types, retrieving feeds, and rendering them in views.

Key Concepts:

• Stream Laravel's FeedManager simplifies feed operations, offering pre-built feeds (user, news, notification).
• Stream stores data as activities (actor, verb, object, time, plus custom data).
• The FollowController uses FeedManager for following/unfollowing, updating feeds accordingly.
• Activities are enriched before display, transforming raw data into a view-friendly format.
• Stream supports various feed types (news, notifications), allowing custom templates for different activities.

Activity Data Structure:

Stream represents data as activities with at least: actor, verb, object, and time. Custom fields are also allowed.

• object: Reference to the model instance.
• actor: Reference to the user creating the activity.
• verb: String representing the action (e.g., 'created').

Example: Defining the activityVerb in the Post model:

class Post extends Model
{
    // ... other code ...

    /**
     * Stream: Activity verb for post creation.
     */
    public function activityVerb()
    {
        return 'created';
    }
}

Utilizing the FeedManager:

The FeedManager simplifies feed interactions. It's accessed via the facade alias set in config/app.php.

Pre-configured Feeds:

The FeedManager provides pre-built feeds: User, News, and Notification. This example primarily uses News and Notification feeds. Further details on other feed types are available here.

Follow/Unfollow Functionality with FeedManager:

The FollowController is updated to use FeedManager for efficient follow/unfollow actions:

// app/Http/Controllers/FollowController.php

public function follow(User $user)
{
    if (!Auth::user()->isFollowing($user->id)) {
        Auth::user()->follows()->create(['target_id' => $user->id]);
        FeedManager::followUser(Auth::id(), $user->id);
        return back()->with('success', 'Now following ' . $user->name);
    } else {
        return back()->with('error', 'Already following this user.');
    }
}

public function unfollow(User $user)
{
    if (Auth::user()->isFollowing($user->id)) {
        $follow = Auth::user()->follows()->where('target_id', $user->id)->first();
        FeedManager::unfollowUser(Auth::id(), $follow->target_id);
        $follow->delete();
        return back()->with('success', 'Unfollowed ' . $user->name);
    } else {
        return back()->with('error', 'Not following this user.');
    }
}

Displaying Feeds:

A FeedsController is created to handle feed retrieval and display:

use GetStream\StreamLaravel\Enrich;

class FeedsController extends Controller
{
    // ... other code ...

    public function newsFeed(Request $request)
    {
        $feed = FeedManager::getNewsFeeds($request->user()->id)['timeline'];
        $activities = $feed->getActivities(0, 25)['results'];
        $activities = $this->enrich()->enrichActivities($activities);
        return view('feed.newsfeed', ['activities' => $activities]);
    }

    private function enrich()
    {
        return new Enrich;
    }

    // ... other methods ...
}

The enrich method handles data transformation for view rendering. A route is defined to access this controller action.

Templating:

The newsfeed view iterates through enriched activities, using a partial (stream-laravel::render_activity) for rendering individual activities. Custom activity partials (e.g., created.blade.php for post creation) are created within the activity view folder.

Example created.blade.php partial:

class Post extends Model
{
    // ... other code ...

    /**
     * Stream: Activity verb for post creation.
     */
    public function activityVerb()
    {
        return 'created';
    }
}

Notification Feed:

The Follow model is updated to include notification feed handling:

// app/Http/Controllers/FollowController.php

public function follow(User $user)
{
    if (!Auth::user()->isFollowing($user->id)) {
        Auth::user()->follows()->create(['target_id' => $user->id]);
        FeedManager::followUser(Auth::id(), $user->id);
        return back()->with('success', 'Now following ' . $user->name);
    } else {
        return back()->with('error', 'Already following this user.');
    }
}

public function unfollow(User $user)
{
    if (Auth::user()->isFollowing($user->id)) {
        $follow = Auth::user()->follows()->where('target_id', $user->id)->first();
        FeedManager::unfollowUser(Auth::id(), $follow->target_id);
        $follow->delete();
        return back()->with('success', 'Unfollowed ' . $user->name);
    } else {
        return back()->with('error', 'Not following this user.');
    }
}

A similar controller action, route, and view (notifications.blade.php) are created for the notification feed. A separate partial (notification_follow.blade.php) is used for follow notifications.

Conclusion:

Stream simplifies the addition of robust feed functionality to Laravel applications. The tutorial demonstrates how to track various activities, manage different feed types, and render them efficiently in views. Further exploration of Stream's capabilities is encouraged.

FAQs (Slightly Reformatted):

The FAQs section is well-written and provides helpful information. No significant changes are needed, but minor formatting adjustments could improve readability. Consider using a numbered list or bolding key terms for better visual organization.

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