php 46 lines · 5 steps

How a Laravel view composer feeds the navigation

A view composer injects per-user navigation data — cached unread counts and quick links — into a shared view.

Explained by highlit
Laravel Intermediate view-composer caching dependency-injection authentication
1<?php
2 
3namespace App\View\Composers;
4 
5use App\Models\Notification;
6use Illuminate\Contracts\Auth\Factory as AuthFactory;
7use Illuminate\Contracts\Cache\Repository as Cache;
8use Illuminate\View\View;
9 
10class NavigationComposer
11{
12 public function __construct(
13 protected AuthFactory $auth,
14 protected Cache $cache,
15 ) {
16 }
17 
18 public function compose(View $view): void
19 {
20 $user = $this->auth->guard()->user();
21 
22 if (! $user) {
23 $view->with([
24 'unreadNotifications' => 0,
25 'quickLinks' => [],
26 ]);
27 
28 return;
29 }
30 
31 $unread = $this->cache->remember(
32 "user.{$user->id}.unread_notifications",
33 now()->addMinutes(5),
34 fn () => Notification::query()
35 ->where('user_id', $user->id)
36 ->whereNull('read_at')
37 ->count(),
38 );
39 
40 $view->with([
41 'currentUser' => $user,
42 'unreadNotifications' => $unread,
43 'quickLinks' => $user->quickLinks()->orderBy('position')->get(),
44 ]);
45 }
46}
01 / 01
STEP 01

Walkthrough

Space play ←→ step click any line
Three takeaways
  1. 1View composers centralize the data a shared partial needs, keeping controllers free of navigation concerns.
  2. 2Wrapping an expensive count in cache remember trades slight staleness for far fewer database hits.
  3. 3Handling the guest case first lets the authenticated path assume a real user exists.

Related explainers

typescript 
import { registerLocaleData } from '@angular/common';
import localeFr from '@angular/common/locales/fr';
import localeFrExtra from '@angular/common/locales/extra/fr';
import localeDe from '@angular/common/locales/de';

Locale-aware bootstrapping in Angular

i18n localization dependency-injection
Intermediate 8 steps
php 
<?php
 
class NameParser
{

Parsing a full name into components in PHP

string-parsing arrays normalization
Intermediate 8 steps
typescript 
import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { ConfigModule } from '@nestjs/config';
import * as Joi from 'joi';
 

Validating env config at boot in NestJS

configuration schema-validation environment-variables
Intermediate 8 steps
php 
<?php
 
namespace App\Services\Checkout;
 

Validating coupons with Laravel's Pipeline

pipeline chain of responsibility transactions
Intermediate 7 steps
java 
@Component
@Converter
public class EncryptedStringConverter implements AttributeConverter<String, String> {
 

Transparent column encryption in Spring & JPA

encryption aes-gcm jpa-converter
Advanced 10 steps
python 
import time
import uuid
 
from django.utils.deprecation import MiddlewareMixin

Attaching per-request context in Django

middleware request lifecycle multi-tenancy
Intermediate 7 steps

Share this explainer

Here's the card — post it anywhere.

How a Laravel view composer feeds the navigation — share card
Made with highlit — turn any snippet into a walkthrough like this in about a minute.
Explain your code