# Registering Lenses

Once you have defined a lens, you are ready to attach it to a resource. Each resource generated by Nova contains a lenses method. To attach a lens to a resource, you should simply add it to the array of lenses returned by this method:

/**
 * Get the lenses available for the resource.
 *
 * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
 * @return array
 */
public function lenses(Request $request)
{
    return [
        new Lenses\MostValuableUsers,
    ];
}

# Authorization

If you would like to only expose a given lens to certain users, you may chain the canSee method onto your lens registration. The canSee method accepts a Closure which should return true or false. The Closure will receive the incoming HTTP request:

use App\User;

/**
 * Get the lenses available for the resource.
 *
 * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
 * @return array
 */
public function lenses(Request $request)
{
    return [
        (new Lenses\MostValuableUsers)->canSee(function ($request) {
            return $request->user()->can(
                'viewValuableUsers', User::class
            );
        }),
    ];
}

In the example above, we are using Laravel's Authorizable trait's can method on our User model to determine if the authorized user is authorized for the viewValuableUsers action. However, since proxying to authorization policy methods is a common use-case for canSee, you may use the canSeeWhen method to achieve the same behavior. The canSeeWhen method has the same method signature as the Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\Access\Authorizable trait's can method:

/**
 * Get the lenses available for the resource.
 *
 * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
 * @return array
 */
public function lenses(Request $request)
{
    return [
        (new Lenses\MostValuableUsers)->canSeeWhen(
            'viewValuableUsers', User::class
        ),
    ];
}

# Actions

Lenses by default will inherit their actions from the parent Resource class. However, you may wish for your Lenses to have their own separate set of Actions tailorwed specifically for them. You can do this by defining the actions method on your Lens class:

/**
 * Get the actions available on the lens.
 *
 * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
 * @return array
 */
public function actions(Request $request)
{
    return [
        new UserDownload,
        new PDFReport,
    ];
}

# Cards

Leses can show their own set of Cards. For example, you may want to show a Metric for a particular subset of records in your database. To do this, you can simply define the cards method on your Lens class:

/**
 * Get the cards available on the entity.
 *
 * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
 * @return array
 */
public function cards(Request $request)
{
    return [
        new TopAffiliatesSalesMetric
    ];
}