Grid Bundle Laravel Package

Getting Started

First, the reality check: prezent/grid-bundle is a Symfony bundle, not a Laravel package. There is no service provider, no config publish, no facade, and no Laravel autodiscovery. If you're evaluating this for a Laravel app, you do not install this package — you install the underlying library instead:

composer require prezent/prezent-grid

The bundle is essentially a thin Symfony DI layer that:

1. Registers grids as services tagged prezent.grid,
2. Exposes a GridFactory/registry to fetch grids by name,
3. Wires Twig rendering helpers.

Where to look first (in the repo source):

• src/DependencyInjection/ — how grids are collected and tagged (this tells you the extension pattern).
• src/Grid/ / the underlying prezent-grid package — GridInterface, AbstractGrid, Column, DataSource.
• tests/ — the most reliable "docs" for this low-traffic package.

Minimal first use case (ported to Laravel): a paginated users table.

use Prezent\Grid\BaseGridType;
use Prezent\Grid\GridBuilder;
use Prezent\Grid\Extension\Core\Type\TextType;

class UsersGrid extends BaseGridType
{
    public function buildGrid(GridBuilder $builder, array $options = []): void
    {
        $builder
            ->addColumn('id', TextType::class)
            ->addColumn('name', TextType::class)
            ->addColumn('email', TextType::class);
    }

    public function getBlockPrefix(): string
    {
        return 'users_grid';
    }
}

Then build it through the GridFactory and pass it your rows (from Eloquent) in a Blade view. If you only need a simple table, stop here — Laravel's @foreach will get you there faster.

Implementation Patterns

1. Define-then-render separation. Treat the grid class as a column/filter declaration, not as a query. The Symfony pattern is GridFactory + DataSource. In Laravel you'll typically:

$grid = $this->gridFactory->createGrid(UsersGrid::class, $options)
    ->createView(User::paginate(25));
return view('users.index', ['grid' => $grid]);

2. Data sources — the main integration point. prezent-grid ships with array and (usually) Doctrine-based sources. For Laravel you'll write your own DataSourceInterface implementation wrapping Builder/Eloquent\Builder:

class EloquentDataSource implements DataSourceInterface
{
    public function __construct(private Builder $query) {}

    public function getTotalItemCount(): int
    {
        return $this->query->count();
    }

    public function getItems(int $offset, int $limit): array
    {
        return $this->query->offset($offset)->limit($limit)->get()->all();
    }
}

This is the cleanest seam — do not try to bend Doctrine's QueryBuilder source into Eloquent.

3. Filters and sorting via $options. Symfony bundles encourage passing request state through options (from ->query()). Build a small mapper: $options = ['page' => (int) request('page', 1), 'sort' => request('sort')] and let your grid class apply them in buildGrid() or a custom grid type.

4. Column types and customization. The bundle exposes a form-like type extension system (GridTypeExtension). Reach for a GridTypeExtension when you want to add a custom column type globally (e.g., a BadgeType column) rather than per-grid — mirroring Symfony's form extension pattern. In Laravel, register extensions manually through the factory.

5. Rendering. The bundle's Twig theme (Resources/views/) is the reference for the view layer. Port the grid.html.twig/grid_*.html.twig templates to Blade partials. Do not attempt to load Twig in Laravel just for this.

6. Service registration pattern → service provider. The Symfony bundle's tagged-service pattern translates cleanly to a ServiceProvider:

$this->app->singleton(GridFactory::class, fn ($app) => new GridFactory([
    UsersGrid::class,
    OrdersGrid::class,
]));

Gotchas and Tips

• This is a Symfony bundle; installing it in Laravel will pull Symfony DI and Twig dependencies you don't want. Use prezent/prezent-grid and port the wiring yourself. Budget an afternoon for the Laravel adapter.
• Very low adoption (single-digit stars, 0 dependents, stale). Treat it as a reference implementation rather than a long-lived dependency. Pin the version and be prepared to fork. The upstream prezent/prezent-grid has more traction but is still niche.
• No Laravel auto-discovery / no config file. If you try to install the bundle and it "does nothing," that's expected — there is no Laravel entrypoint.
• The GridFactory is the bottleneck for extensibility. Grids must be registered up front in the Symfony bundle via tags. For a Laravel adapter, either keep a static registry or bind grid classes as singletons and resolve names from the container. Avoid instantiating grids ad hoc — you lose extensions (filters, custom column types) if bypassed.
• Filtering/page state is not persisted. Unlike a full CRUD package, prezent-grid is stateless — it expects the caller to pass request state in $options. Combine with Laravel's ->withQueryString() for pagination links.
• Column type resolution uses a "block prefix" (getBlockPrefix). If a custom type isn't rendering, that's usually because the block prefix doesn't match the Blade/Twig partial name. Log the view blocks when debugging.
• Debugging tips: (a) dd($grid->createView()) to inspect column/filter metadata before rendering; (b) use the underlying test suite from the repo as copy-paste examples — the README is minimal; (c) enable Symfony's container debug if you're ever testing inside a Symfony app to verify the prezent.grid tag actually collected your service.
• Extension points, ranked by usefulness:
  1. Custom DataSourceInterface (for Eloquent/API/paginated sources).
  2. Custom BaseGridType subclasses (column bundles).
  3. GridTypeExtension (global column behaviors like date formatting).
  4. Override the Blade partials (rendering).
• When not to use it: if all you need is sorting + pagination on one or two tables, Laravel's native pagination plus spatie/laravel-query-builder is a better fit. Reach for prezent-grid only if you want declarative grid definitions shared across many admin screens and are comfortable maintaining the bridge.