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Nova Big Filter Laravel Package
nrml-co/nova-big-filter
A Laravel Nova package that adds a powerful, flexible filtering component for resource indexes, helping admins narrow large datasets with advanced filter controls and a cleaner filtering experience.
Nova Big Filter adds a searchable, wide-dropdown filter to Laravel Nova, making it easy to filter resources by fields or relationships with large option sets. Instead of scrolling through an unwieldy native select, users get a searchable panel that scales to thousands of records.
- Searchable dropdown with async-friendly option loading
- Supports relationship filters (e.g., users, categories, tags)
- Customizable width and placeholder labels
- Seamless integration with Nova's filter API
- Lightweight, single-package install via Composer
Frequently asked questions about Nova Big Filter
- Does Nova Big Filter work with Laravel Nova 4 or 5?
- No, not unmodified. The last release was in October 2019, which predates Nova 3's frontend rewrite, so the Vue component targets the Nova 1.x/2.x filter menu. Treat any attempt on Nova 3, 4, or 5 as a half-day timeboxed spike rather than a rollout. If you like the pattern, reimplementing the searchable panel on modern Nova is usually one to two days of frontend work.
- How do I install nrml-co/nova-big-filter?
- Run composer require nrml-co/nova-big-filter on a Nova 1.x or 2.x project, then publish the package assets and clear your compiled and cache files. The service provider NrmlCo\NovaBigFilter\NovaBigFilterServiceProvider is auto-discovered on Laravel 5.5+, so no config/app.php edit is needed. Before installing, diff the package's Composer constraints against your installed Nova, Laravel, and PHP versions. Also confirm the dist assets are committed, because the 2019 Node toolchain may not rebuild cleanly today.
- How do I use Nova Big Filter with a relationship filter such as users, categories, or tags?
- You keep using Nova's normal filter classes registered through ->filters([...]) on the resource; the package relocates them from the stock dropdown into its searchable panel rather than replacing the filter API. Relationship filters work the same way they do natively, so existing users, categories, or tags filter classes should render in the panel without changes. Test with a production-sized option set to confirm the async option loading path behaves as expected.
- Can I customize the width and placeholder text of the Nova Big Filter dropdown?
- Yes. The package exposes customizable width and placeholder label options, which is the main reason to choose it over Nova's native select for wide option sets. These settings live in the package's component and filter layer rather than in Nova core, so review them when upgrading or forking. If you maintain a fork, keep those props stable so other filters depending on them do not break.
- Is nrml-co/nova-big-filter still maintained?
- No. The last release is dated 2019-10-16, the repository has roughly 36 stars and zero dependents, and there is no active triage or upstream fix path. Adopting it makes your team the de facto maintainer of the fork. If your dependency policy requires active maintenance or a release within the last 24 months, this package fails that test.
- Is Nova Big Filter safe to run in production?
- Only for internal, low-stakes admin tooling where no compliance regime mandates maintained dependencies. The risk profile is abandonment rather than code quality: no upstream fixes, version drift against Nova's closed-source frontend, and possible FilterMenu override collisions with other Nova tools that patch the same surface. Filter state can also desync between the panel and the query string, which shows up as filters applied in the UI but absent from results. Accessibility, keyboard navigation, dark mode, and localization are unverified gaps that tend to escalate quickly in admin panels.
- What are the alternatives to Nova Big Filter for large filter dropdowns in Nova?
- On Nova 3 and later, the most reliable option is a small first-party Vue component that reimplements the same always-open searchable panel and wires into Nova's existing filter classes. That keeps you off an abandoned dependency and avoids override collisions, at a cost of roughly one to two days of frontend work including review. If you evaluate other third-party Nova filter packages, check their supported Nova major and release cadence using the same criteria.
- Does Nova Big Filter support async loading and scale to thousands of records?
- The package advertises async-friendly option loading, and its searchable panel is far more usable than scrolling a native select with thousands of entries. It does not add server-side filtering itself; search happens over whatever option set your filter class supplies. For very large datasets, confirm the underlying filter lazy-loads options rather than dumping them all on page load. If you need faceted counts or server-side search endpoints, the package does not provide them.
- Does Nova Big Filter work with PHP 8 and Laravel 9, 10, or 11?
- Assume it does not work unmodified. The 2019 release predates PHP 8 and every current Laravel LTS, and both its Composer constraints and its Vue major need verification against your stack. Diff the package's composer.json against your installed Nova, Laravel, and PHP versions before writing any code. On modern stacks, a small in-house component is the lower-risk path.
- Does Nova Big Filter sync filters to the URL or support saved filter sets and faceted counts?
- No. The package is a presentation-layer affordance that relocates Nova's existing filters into a searchable panel; it does not persist filter state, sync to the query string, save filter sets across sessions, or provide faceted counts. Those features would require extending abandoned code, which is the worst available trade. If operators need URL-synced or saved filters, plan a first-party implementation against the current Nova frontend instead.
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