Defining Filters

Nova filters are simple classes that allow you to scope your Nova index queries with custom conditions.

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Select Filters

The most common type of Nova filter is the “select” filter, which allows the user to select a filter option from a drop-down selection menu:

You may generate a select filter using the nova:filter Artisan command. By default, Nova will place newly generated filters in the app/Nova/Filters directory:

php artisan nova:filter UserType

Each select filter generated by Nova contains two methods: apply and options. The apply method is responsible for modifying the underlying Eloquent query to achieve the desired filter state, while the options method defines the “values” the filter may have. Let’s take a look at an example UserType filter:

namespace App\Nova\Filters;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Laravel\Nova\Filters\Filter;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

class UserType extends Filter
{
    /**
     * The filter's component.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    public $component = 'select-filter';

    /**
     * Apply the filter to the given query.
     */
    public function apply(NovaRequest $request, Builder $query, mixed $value): Builder
    {
        return $query->where('type', $value);
    }

    /**
     * Get the filter's available options.
     *
     * @return array<string, string>
     */
    public function options(NovaRequest $request): array
    {
        return [
            'Administrator' => 'admin',
            'Editor' => 'editor',
        ];
    }
}

The options method should return an array of keys and values. The array’s keys will be used as the “human-friendly” text that will be displayed in the Nova UI, while the array’s values will be passed into the apply method as the $value argument. This filter defines two possible values: admin and editor.

As you can see in the example above, you may leverage the incoming $value to modify your query, and the apply method should return the modified query instance.

​

Boolean Filters

Nova also supports “boolean” filters, which allow the user to select multiple filter options via a list of check-boxes:

You may generate a boolean filter using the nova:filter --boolean Artisan command. By default, Nova will place newly generated filters in the app/Nova/Filters directory:

php artisan nova:filter UserType --boolean

Each boolean filter generated by Nova contains two methods: apply and options. The apply method is responsible for modifying the Eloquent query to achieve the desired filter state, while the options method defines the “values” the filter may have.

When building boolean filters, the $value argument passed to the apply method is an associative array containing the boolean value of each of your filter’s options. Let’s take a look at an example UserType filter:

use Illuminate\Contracts\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

/**
 * Apply the filter to the given query.
 */
public function apply(NovaRequest $request, Builder $query, mixed $value): Builder
{
    /** @var array{admin: bool, editor: bool} $value */
    return $query->where(function ($query) use ($value) {
        return $query->where('is_admin', $value['admin'])
                 ->where('is_editor', $value['editor']);
    });
}

The options method should return an array of keys and values. The array’s keys will be used as the “human-friendly” text that will be displayed in the Nova UI. The array’s values will be passed into the apply method as the $value argument. This filter defines two possible values: admin and editor.

As you can see in the example above, you may leverage the incoming $value to modify your query. The apply method should return the modified query instance.

​

Date Filters

Nova also supports “date” filters, which allow the user to select the filter’s value via a date selection calendar:

You may generate a date filter using the nova:filter --date Artisan command. By default, Nova will place newly generated filters in the app/Nova/Filters directory:

php artisan nova:filter BirthdayFilter --date

Each date filter generated by Nova contains one method: apply. The apply method is responsible for modifying the query to achieve the desired filter state.

When building date filters, the $value argument passed to the apply method is the string representation of the selected date. Let’s take a look at an example BirthdayFilter filter:

namespace App\Nova\Filters;

use Illuminate\Contracts\Database\Eloquent\Builder;
use Illuminate\Support\Carbon;
use Laravel\Nova\Filters\DateFilter;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

class BirthdayFilter extends DateFilter
{
    /**
     * Apply the filter to the given query.
     */
    public function apply(NovaRequest $request, Builder $query, mixed $value): Builder
    {
        return $query->where('birthday', '<=', Carbon::parse($value));
    }
}

As you can see in the example above, you may leverage the incoming $value to modify your query. The apply method should return the modified query instance.

​

Filter Titles

If you would like to change the filter title that is displayed in Nova’s filter selection menu, you may define a name property on the filter class:

/**
 * The displayable name of the filter.
 *
 * @var \Stringable|string
 */
public $name = 'Filter by User Type';

If the name of your filter needs to be dynamic, you should create a name method on the filter class:

/**
 * Get the displayable name of the filter.
 *
 * @return \Stringable|string
 */
public function name()
{
    return 'Filter By '.$this->customProperty;
}

​

Filter Default Values

If you would like to set the default value of a filter, you may define a default method on the filter class:

/**
 * The default value of the filter.
 *
 * @var array|mixed
 */
public function default()
{
    return [
        'admin' => true,
        'editor' => false,
    ];
}

​

Dynamic Filters

There may be times when you want to create a dynamic filter which filters on columns that are determined at runtime, allowing you to reuse a filter class across multiple different resources and fields.

To accomplish this, you could pass the name of the filterable column into the filter’s constructor. In addition to passing the column name that we want to filter on in the constructor, we’ll also need to override the key method of the filter so that Nova can uniquely identify this instance of the filter if multiple instances of this filter exist on the page. Let’s take a look at an example TimestampFilter filter:

namespace App\Nova\Filters;

use Illuminate\Support\Carbon;
use Laravel\Nova\Filters\DateFilter;
use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

class TimestampFilter extends DateFilter
{
    /**
     * Create a new filter instance.
     */
    public function __construct(
        protected string $column
    ) { }

    /**
     * Apply the filter to the given query.
     */
    public function apply(NovaRequest $request, Builder $query, mixed $value): Builder
    {
        return $query->where($this->column, '<=', Carbon::parse($value));
    }

    /**
     * Get the key for the filter.
     */
    public function key(): string
    {
        return 'timestamp_'.$this->column;
    }
}

Then, as discussed, you should pass the name of the column you wish to filter on:

use Laravel\Nova\Http\Requests\NovaRequest;

// ...

/**
 * Get the filters available for the resource.
 *
 * @return array<int, \Laravel\Nova\Filters\Filter>
 */
public function filters(NovaRequest $request): array
{
    return [
        new Filters\TimestampFilter('created_at'),
        new Filters\TimestampFilter('deleted_at'),
    ];
}