Laravel: drag-and-drop repositioning with auto-save of DB entries

intro.markdown

Laravel: drag-and-drop repositioning with auto-save of DB entries

Use case: Database entries are represented in a table. By grabbing and moving a row up or down the table, you can change the entries' order/position. The changes are submitted automatically via ajax.

• Uses jQueryUI (custom download: sortable is needed)
• newly created elements are added to the top (see route /jobs/create)

jobs.blade.php

// head
{{ HTML::style('scripts/vendor/jquery-ui/jquery-ui.min.css') }}

// handle in each table row
<a class="handle">Move</a>

// end of body
@section('additional-scripts')
	{{ HTML::script('scripts/vendor/jquery-ui/jquery-ui.min.js') }}
	<script>
	$('table.db tbody').sortable({
		'containment': 'parent',
		'revert': true,
		helper: function(e, tr) {
			var $originals = tr.children();
			var $helper = tr.clone();
			$helper.children().each(function(index) {
				$(this).width($originals.eq(index).width());
			});
			return $helper;
		},
		'handle': '.handle',
		update: function(event, ui) {
			$.post('{{ route('jobs-reposition') }}', $(this).sortable('serialize'), function(data) {
				if(!data.success) {
					alert('Whoops, something went wrong :/');
				}
			}, 'json');
		}
	});
	$(window).resize(function() {
		$('table.db tr').css('min-width', $('table.db').width());
	});
	</script>
@endsection

migration_create_jobs.php

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;

class CreateJobs extends Migration {

	public function up()
	{
		Schema::create('jobs', function($table)
		{
			$table->increments('id');
			$table->string('profession', '256');
			$table->text('description');
			$table->integer('position')->unsigned();
			$table->boolean('visible')->default(false);
			$table->timestamps();
		});
	}

	public function down()
	{
		Schema::dropIfExists('jobs');
	}

}

routes.php

<?php

Route::post('/jobs/create', function(){
  // Validation [...]
	Jobs::increment('position');
	$jobs = new Jobs;
	  // [...]
		$jobs->position = 1;
		$jobs->save();
		return Redirect::route('home');
	}
});

Route::post('/jobs/reposition', function()
{
	if(Input::has('item'))
	{
		$i = 0;
		foreach(Input::get('item') as $id)
		{
			$i++;
			$item = Jobs::find($id);
			$item->position = $i;
			$item->save();
		}
		return Response::json(array('success' => true));
	}
	else
	{
		return Response::json(array('success' => false));
	}
});