Managing frontend user profiles from Twill

This is a simple solution to allow site administrators to manage frontend user profiles from the CMS. It can be used as a starting point to implement a user approval workflow and content access restrictions.

Objectives:

• Add a Profiles section to the CMS for site administrators
• Automatically create and assign Profile records to users upon registration

Requirements:

• Laravel Breeze for user authentication

Create the profiles module

This module will be used to attach extra information to User records:

php artisan twill:make:module Profiles

Edit the migration

Update the generated migration to add the required fields:

:::filename::: database/migrations/2021_08_01_204153_create_profiles_tables.php :::#filename:::

{
  "file": "./manage_frontend_user_profiles_from_twill/2021_08_01_204153_create_profiles_tables.php",
  "focusMethods": "up"
}

Then, run the migration:

php artisan migrate

Edit the Profile model

Edit the fillable fields to match the new schema and add the Profile > User relationship:

:::filename::: resources/views/admin/repeaters/tasks.blade.php :::#filename:::

{
  "file": "./manage_frontend_user_profiles_from_twill/Profile.php",
  "focusMethods": "user",
  "focusProperties": "fillable"
}

Edit the User model

Define the User > Profile relationship and use the model's booted() method to hook into the created event. When a user is created through the Laravel Breeze user registration form, automatically create and assign a Profile record.

Finally, define the name attribute accessor. This will allow existing Laravel Breeze code to access the user name from the attached profile:

:::filename::: app/Models/User.php :::#filename:::

{
  "file": "./manage_frontend_user_profiles_from_twill/User.php",
  "collapseAll": "",
  "focusMethods": ["profile", "booted", "getNameAttribute"]
}

Edit ProfileController

Define our custom name column to be used instead of the default title and prevent administrators from creating and deleting profiles in the CMS

:::filename::: app/Http/Controllers/Twill/ProfileController.php :::#filename:::

{
  "file": "./manage_frontend_user_profiles_from_twill/ProfileController.php",
  "collapseAll": "",
  "focusProperties": ["titleColumnKey", "indexOptions"]
}

Edit the profile form

:::filename::: resources/views/twill/profiles/form.blade.php :::#filename:::

[@extends](https://github.com/extends)('twill::layouts.form')

[@section](https://github.com/section)('contentFields')
    <x-twill::input
        type="textarea"
        name="description"
        label="Description"
        :maxlength="1000"
    />

    <x-twill::checkbox {{-- [tl! ++] --}}
        name="is_vip"{{-- [tl! ++] --}}
        label="Can access all VIP content"{{-- [tl! ++] --}}
    />
[@stop](https://github.com/stop)

Edit ProfileRequest

:::filename::: app/Http/Requests/Twill/ProfileRequest.php :::#filename:::

{
  "file": "./manage_frontend_user_profiles_from_twill/ProfileRequest.php",
  "collapseAll": "",
  "focusMethods": ["rulesForUpdate"]
}

Finishing touches

Add the module to your twill-navigation.php and to your admin.php routes and you are done!

Where to go from here?

Site administrators now have access to a Profiles section in the CMS, to edit basic user information.

Within your site's views and controllers, you can access the profile information for the current user via Auth::user()->profile.

User approval & restricted content

Upon registration, a user profile is created with a draft status (ie. not published). This can be used to implement a user approval workflow:

[@if](https://github.com/if) (Auth::user()->profile->published)
{{-- Account has been approved, show the dashboard --}}
[@else](https://github.com/else)
{{-- Account has not yet been approved, show "pending approval" message --}}
[@endif](https://github.com/endif)

The same technique also applies for granular access control (e.g. a VIP section with additional content).

Frontend profile editing

A frontend form can be added to allow users to edit their descriptions. As always, make sure to sanitize user input before storing it in the database.

Complete user management from the CMS

For simplicity, this implementation prevents site administrators from creating and deleting users from the CMS.

A few methods from ModuleRepository can be extended in ProfileRepository to implement the feature:

• afterSave(), for user creation
• afterDelete(), for user deletion