Have you ever built an admin panel from scratch and found yourself copying and pasting a lot of repetitive code? As developers, we’ve all been there – spending hours tweaking CRUD interfaces and struggling to keep the UI consistent.
Filament promises to streamline this process. As an open-source admin panel framework built using the TALL stack, it aims to speed up panel development within Laravel apps.
Our Laravel Developers were impressed by Filament’s elegant design and feature-rich offering out of the box. With powerful generators for forms, tables and other common elements, it looked like a great way to spend less time coding the standard pieces.
So we are using it already, if you are also thinking about using Laravel Filament. This is a great starting point!
Benefits of Using Laravel Filament
Rapid Development Of Admin Panels
One of the great things about Laravel Filament is how it can drastically speed up the development process. The main way it achieves this is through resource classes that correspond to Eloquent models. These allow you to quickly scaffold full CRUD interfaces with just a few lines of code.
All the standard form and table views are then auto-generated based on the schema definition. This saves an enormous amount of time compared to building these components manually. No more writing the same validation and field generation logic repeatedly!
Additionally, Filament has tools for bulk actions like mass updates that further accelerate routine tasks. Overall, it helps reduce repetitive code and boosts productivity so we can focus on custom logic rather than boilerplate interfaces.
Beautiful And Intuitive UI
Another key benefit is Filament’s out-of-the-box interface. Its design utilizes Tailwind CSS to create an elegant and polished look with minimal effort.
Plus, the responsive layout ensures the panels seamlessly adapt across devices from desktop to mobile. This increases accessibility for all users interacting with the admin backend.
Under the hood, Livewire components power the forms and tables with reactive updates. But as developers, we appreciate how Filament abstracts away these technologies to offer a seamless experience.
The UI also remains customizable as needed through the Livewire components. So whether tweaking styles or adding new fields, Filament provides a solid starting point to build sophisticated panels with less work.
Robust feature set
Filament provides a wide range of powerful out-of-the-box features to build robust admin panels quickly.
Dynamic forms with validation
The auto-generated forms include validation logic to ensure only clean data is saved to the database. Developers can customize validation messages, rules and error handling as needed.
Sortable and filterable tables
Filtering, sorting, pagination and other table features give users full control over large datasets. Columns can even be dynamically added or reordered on the fly.
User management and authentication
An authentication system with support for multiple guard types empowers admin access control. User registration, password resets and more are all handled through the interface.
Notifications, charts, widgets etc.
Additional components like success/error notifications, visual charts and customizable widgets enhance the experience. These small touches improve usability.
Active development
Filament sees rapid development to expand its capabilities.
Laravel Filament V3
The exciting roadmap for V3 promises flexible multi-tenancy, report-like tables, modals everywhere, and much more. Future-proofing is a priority through ongoing progress.
Overall, Filament’s robust functionality tackles core admin panel needs out of the box. But it also remains customizable and continues advancing to reduce barriers to development.
Also Read: Laravel Filament vs Backpack
Getting Started
Getting Started With Laravel Filament is Fairly Easy
Overview of the installation process
Getting set up with Filament is simple and straightforward. We’ll walk through the basic steps:
composer require filament/filament
This installs the Filament package. Next, migrate the necessary tables with:
php artisan vendor:publish –tag=”filament-migrations”
php artisan migrate
Now an admin user can be created to access the panels:
php artisan filament:admin your@email.com
Creating first resource
To demonstrate Filament’s auto-generation, we’ll create a simple User resource:
// User.php model
use Filament\Forms\Form;
use Filament\Tables\Table;
use Filament\Tables\Columns\TextColumn;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class User extends Model
{
//...
protected static function form(Form $form): Form
{
return $form
->display('id')
->text('name');
}
protected static function table(Table $table): Table
{
return $table
->columns([
TextColumn::make('id')->sortable(),
TextColumn::make('name'),
]);
}
}
Now the resource, forms and tables are automatically generated! No need to define the views – Filament handles that behind the scenes.
Customizing forms
Filament provides several ways to customize the auto-generated forms:
Form builder components
Additional field types like textareas, toggles, dates etc. can be added using the form builder components.
->textarea('biography')
->toggle('active')
->dateTime('birthday')
Schema array
For more flexibility, the field configuration can be defined via a schema array:
'fields' => [ 'name' => [ 'label' => 'Name', ], //... ]
Columns and layout
The form layout, columns and styling can also be tweaked:
->columns([ 'name', 'email' ]) ->card()->columns(2)
Building tables
Similar customization exists for tables:
Defining columns
Specify which model attributes to include:
->columns([
TextColumn::make('name'),
TextColumn::make('email'),
])
Adding filters
Filtering functionality lets users search/narrow results:
->filters([ //... ])
Pagination, sorting etc.
All common table features like pagination, sorting and export are supported out of the box but also customizable.
Filament aims to provide a great starting point while allowing flexibility to fine-tune pages as needed.
Also Read: Filament vs Orchid
Additional Features
Media Management
Filament includes a full-featured media library component to upload, organize, and associate files. Images can be sized on upload for optimized previews.
User roles and permissions
Defining roles with specific abilities to access pages/records empowers robust access control. Permissions can be checked within the code.
Custom pages and navigation
Whitelabel the panel completely by building custom pages outside of resources. Dynamic navigation adapts based on permissions.
Relation managers
Elegantly attach and modify related models through modal popups. Inline selects, files, and more benefit the admin experience.
Modals and actions
Popups allow actions anywhere without page reloads. Dynamic modals automate the creation/editing of sub-records.
Extensibility and customization
The Livewire-powered components excel at extensibility. Override views, styles, and logic through own classes to tailor Filament precisely as an application demands. Extend core functionality through plugins.
Overall, these features show Filament’s thoroughness. While the primary goal remains accelerating interface work, its comprehensive options also make customizing an admin panel a pleasure through Filament rather than a chore.
Also Read: Laravel Nova Vs Filament
Final Thoughts
Filament provides a highly productive way for developers to quickly yet robustly build feature-rich admin panels for Laravel applications. Its host of generators and automated functionality aim to streamline a traditionally repetitive process.
At the same time, the framework maintains an emphasis on flexibility through full customization support. Whether tweaking styles or building entirely new screens, Filament strives to balance speed with control. Its choice of Livewire for reactivity further streamlines page interactions.
As experienced Laravel Developers, we’ve found Filament to be a compelling option for accelerating backend interface work at Hybrid Web Agency. Its rapid yet robust approach fits well with how we aim to help clients deliver digital solutions efficiently.
For organizations seeking to develop custom Laravel projects with administration interfaces, partnering with Hybrid offers a strategic advantage. Our team of senior Laravel developers have extensive experience implementing both off-the-shelf and bespoke administration systems.
Hybrid works flexibly to meet your unique needs. We can either develop Laravel solutions directly using our in-house team or act as an extension to augment an existing software squad.
If developing powerful yet user-friendly administrative interfaces is a priority for your Laravel applications, contact Hybrid today. Our experts would be delighted to conduct a free, no-obligation initial consultation and proposal. We can discuss how Filament or our custom solutions may help strengthen your product and save considerable time and resources.
