Laravel 5.8: Eloquent Pagination for Bootstrap Datatable - php

Question

I couldn't find any questions like this. All other questions are not using the Bootstrap datatables like me - they built their own table.
My Laravel 5.8 application returns currently a list of users in a searchable datatable. The problem is, that it's returning ALL users at once, so the page loads really slow since the application has a lot of users.
My routes\web.php:
Route::get('/admin/customers', 'Admin\CustomerController#renderPage')->name('admin.customers');
My app\Http\Controllers\Admin\CustomerController.php:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers\Admin;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;
use ConsoleTVs\Charts\Facades\Charts;
use App\User;
class CustomerController extends Controller
{
public function renderPage() {
$customers = User::get();
return view('pages.admin.customers')->with([
'customers' => $customers
]);
}
}
My table in the view resources\views\pages\admin\customers.blade.php gets generated like this (I've removed the not relevant HTML code):
<!-- Bootstrap -->
<link href="/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<!-- Datatables -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/dataTables.bootstrap.min.css">
<div class="table-responsive">
<table class="table table-condensed table-hover" id="customers-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>#</th>
<th>First name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>Email Address</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
#foreach($customers as $customer)
<tr>
<td>{{ $customer->id }}</td>
<td>{{ $customer->first_name }}</td>
<td>{{ $customer->last_name }}</td>
<td>{{ $customer->email }}</td>
</tr>
#endforeach
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<!-- Datatables -->
<script src="/js/jquery.dataTables.min.js"></script>
<script src="/js/dataTables.bootstrap.min.js"></script>
<script>
// Datatable settings
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#customers-table').DataTable({
"language": {
"lengthMenu": "Show _MENU_ entires per page",
"search": "Search:",
"decimal": ".",
"thousands": ",",
"zeroRecords": "No entries found.",
"info": "Showing entries _START_ to _END_ of total _TOTAL_",
"infoEmpty": "No entries available.",
"infoFiltered": "(filtered from _MAX_ total entries)",
"paginate": {
"first": "First",
"last": "Last",
"next": "Next",
"previous": "Previous"
}
}
});
} );
</script>
So the question is: What do I need to update to what in order to add support for pagination?

Answer 1

Instead of rendering the html on the server, try to load the DataTable via Ajax.
HTML
<table id="data-table" class="table table-striped table-bordered dt-responsive nowrap dataTable no-footer dtr-inline collapsed">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>ID</th>
<th>First name</th>
<th>Last name</th>
<th>E-Mail</th>
<th>Action</th>
</tr>
<tfoot></tfoot>
</table>
JavaScript
const table = $('#customer-table').DataTable({
'processing': true,
'serverSide': true,
'ajax': {
'url': 'customers/list',
'type': 'POST'
},
'columns': [
{'data': 'id'},
{'data': 'first_name'},
{'data': 'last_name'},
{'data': 'email'},
{
'orderable': false,
'searchable': false,
'data': null,
'render': function (data, type, row, meta) {
// render custom html
return '<button type="button" class="btn btn-info">Edit</button>';
}
}
],
});
PHP
On the server-side take the POST request parameters and build a dynamic query (with the QueryBuilder).
Then map the result set into a DataTable compatible JSON response:
The controller action
// Build dynamic query
// ...
// Fetch result set
// ...
return response()->json([
'recordsTotal' => $count,
'recordsFiltered' => $count,
'draw' => $draw,
'data' => $rows,
];
More details about the json response: DataTable Server-side processing

Answer 2

public function renderPage() {
$customers = DB::table('users')->paginate(15);
return view('pages.admin.customers')->with([
'customers' => $customers
]);
}