Filament Column Length Limiter Laravel Package

Getting Started

composer require defstudio/filament-column-length-limiter:^5.0

• Requirements: Filament 5 (PHP 8.2+). v5.0.0 is a compatibility release — the only functional change is the Filament 5 upgrade, so the public API is the same as v4.0.10.
• No publish/config step. The service provider is auto-discovered and registers the column macro/component. There's nothing in config/ to publish — limits are set per column, not globally.
• First use case: take an existing TextColumn that renders long text (body, description, notes) and swap it for the limiter so cells truncate at a word boundary with an ellipsis and expose the full value in a tooltip, instead of blowing up row height or forcing a ->wrap().

TextColumn::make('description')
    ->limit(80)              // the package's limiter macro
    ->tooltip(fn ($state) => $state),

• Where to look first: the column class under src/ (small surface area — one column + one macro) and the tests/ directory, which is the de-facto usage documentation for edge cases. Then composer.lock in your app to confirm filament/filament:^5.0 resolved.

Implementation Patterns

Shared limit constants. Don't sprinkle magic numbers across resources. Define limits next to the model or in a Support/ColumnLimits.php and reference them, so a UI tweak is a one-line change:

TextColumn::make('excerpt')->limit(ColumnLimits::EXCERPT);

Tooltip only when truncated. The full-value tooltip is noisy on short values. Feed the macro the raw state and let it no-op below the threshold, or gate the tooltip:

TextColumn::make('notes')
    ->limit(120)
    ->tooltip(fn ($state) => strlen($state) > 120 ? $state : null),

Keep the raw state for exports and actions. Truncation is a render-time concern. Anything downstream that reads the record — CSV export, ->action() modals, copy-to-clipboard — should read the Eloquent attribute, not the formatted column state. If you build a custom export, use $record->notes, not the column's displayed string.

Tables and infolists. The same limiter works in infolists where a long text entry would otherwise dominate the section; it's the cheapest fix for "my view page is 6000px tall."

Consistent table-wide treatment. For resources with many free-text columns, apply the limiter via a configureUsing() hook on the column class in a service provider, then override per-column where needed. This keeps every resource consistent without touching each file.

Relationship columns. Works on TextColumn backed by relationships (author.bio) since it only touches the resolved state — just be aware the relationship is still fully loaded (see Gotchas).

Gotchas and Tips

• v5 is Filament 5 only. There is no multi-version support. If you're still on Filament 3/4, pin ^4.0 — installing ^5.0 alongside Filament 4 will fail resolution or, worse, pass on a loose constraint and break at render time. This is the entire substance of the release; there are no deprecations or new features to migrate for.
• Truncation doesn't reduce payload. The full string still ships from the database to the Livewire component and into the HTML (tooltip). On tables of long articles, a ->limit(100) column still transfers every byte. If payload matters, select a substring in the query or use a dedicated short column.
• Sorting and searching use the full value. ->sortable() orders by the DB column, and ->searchable() matches the full text — so a row can appear in results for a term that's hidden by the limiter. Expected, but it confuses users who search for a visible substring.
• HTML/rich text. Truncating markup mid-tag breaks rendering. Strip tags first (strip_tags($state)) or use HtmlString with a sanitizer before limiting. Same for Markdown.
• Multi-byte text. Verify the macro uses mb_substr; a byte-based cut mangles accented characters and emoji, and can produce invalid UTF-8 in the JSON payload.
• Tooltips are poor on touch. Filament tooltips are hover-driven; on mobile the full text is effectively inaccessible. If the untruncated value is critical, pair the limiter with a ->action() that opens a modal showing the full record field.
• Extension point: the column is a thin TextColumn subclass — override formatStateUsing() in your own subclass if you need domain-specific shortening (e.g. sentence-aware cuts) rather than editing vendor code. Keep any custom logic in a subclass, since the package has a small maintainer surface and Filament major bumps arrive regularly.
• Debugging truncation that "isn't happening": check for a later ->wrap()/->html()/->formatStateUsing() on the same column that replaces the state after the limiter runs, and confirm the macro registration happened (a missing provider after composer install --no-scripts in CI is the usual culprit).