Laravel Comment System: Master Real-time Interaction on Your Site

Building a dynamic comment system is essential for most websites, ranging from blogs to social media platforms. The comment system enables users to leave comments that foster engagement, and you can get feedback on your content.

In this blog, we’ll help you learn how to build Laravel comment systems from installation to testing. We’ll also dive into how Laravel development experts integrate various technologies like Pusher and Vue.js to build a robust site. But before that, let’s understand what the Laravel comment system is and what its building blocks are.

What is a Laravel Comment System?

A Laravel comment system is a feature that allows users to leave comments on blog posts, articles, or any other content on a website. It enables interaction, allowing users to share their thoughts, ask questions, and discuss the content with others. It typically includes functionalities such as:

• Comment submission: Users can submit comments through a form or other interface.
• Comment display: Comments are displayed in a structured format, often with timestamps and user information.
• Nested comments: Users can reply to existing comments, creating a threaded discussion.
• User authentication: Comments may be tied to registered users, allowing for moderation and accountability.
• Comment moderation: Administrators can manage comments, approving or deleting them as needed.
• Real-time updates: Comments can be updated in real-time using technologies like Pusher or Laravel Echo.

A Laravel Comment System can be a simple or complex feature, depending on the requirements of the project. It can include using web development technologies such as Pusher, WebSockets, and Vue.js.

Benefits of Using Laravel for Building Comment System

Using Laravel for comment systems offers several significant benefits that make it an excellent choice for developers:

• Ease of Integration: Laravel’s robust ecosystem supports various packages, which allows seamless integration of commenting functionality. It simplifies the process of adding comments to various models by utilizing traits like HasComments.
• Customizability: Laravel’s flexibility makes it easy to customize your comment system according to specific project needs. Developers can adjust approval processes and nesting options, ensuring that the comment functionality fits unique requirements.
• Built-in Admin Panel: Many Laravel packages, such as Commenter, come with built-in admin panels that make managing comments more simple. This allows you to control the filtering and organization of comments through an intuitive interface.
• Security: Its powerful security features, like CSRF protection and validation, help safeguard comment systems from SQL injections and malicious attacks. That ensures Laravel site security and user experience.
• Performance: The efficient database query handling allows the comment system to be scalable and fast, even for websites with heavy user interaction. Plus, you can use caching to reduce the load on the server while still maintaining real-time interactions.
• Support for Real-time Features: Laravel’s integration with technologies like Pusher or WebSockets can provide real-time comment updates, making interactions on the platform more dynamic.

These benefits of Laravel make it an ideal choice to build a robust and scalable comment system. Now, let’s dive into how professional Laravel developers leverage it to build customized comment systems.

What We’ll Use to Build a Live Commenting System?

Before we dive into how to create a Laravel comment system, let’s dive into the web development technologies that will be involved. They are going to be Laravel, Pusher, and Vue.js:

Laravel

It is one of the best PHP frameworks that can handle the server-side logic of web apps, manage user authentication and store comments in the database. Laravel will interact with the database (usually through Eloquent ORM) to store and retrieve comment data. It will also serve API routes that allow Vue.js to post and fetch comments dynamically.

Pusher

Pusher is a real-time communication service that enables instant updates in your app without the need to refresh the page. In this setup, Pusher will notify all connected users when a new comment is added, updating their views in real time. Laravel integrates easily with Pusher using the Broadcasting functionality, allowing you to broadcast new comments.

Vue.js

Vue.js is a JavaScript framework that can be used to create interactive user interfaces. It offers a reactive interface that updates the UI components when a comment is submitted. Vue.js components will be responsible for rendering, displaying, and updating the comments in real time. It all happens when a new comment is broadcasted from the backend via Pusher.

How to Build a Laravel Comment System?

The process of building a Laravel comment system involves various steps, from installation of Pusher and Echo to reading components in Vue. Here is a stepwise breakdown of how you can create a comment system using Laravel:

1. Install and Setup Laravel, Pusher, and Echo

First, install Laravel and set up Pusher to broadcast real-time comments. We’ll also install Laravel Echo, which will listen to events broadcasted by Pusher and update the front end dynamically.

Step 1: If you haven’t installed Laravel, install it using Composer. Here is the command you can use:

composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel laravel-comments-system

Step 2: Once installed, we’ll start setting up the pusher. In your .env file, configure Pusher credentials:

BROADCAST_DRIVER=pusher
PUSHER_APP_ID=your-app-id
PUSHER_APP_KEY=your-app-key
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=your-app-secret
PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=your-cluster

Step 3: After saving the changes of the .env file, install Pusher for real-time functionality:

composer require pusher/pusher-php-server

Step 4: Now, install Laravel Echo and Pusher JS client to enable real-time comment broadcasting:

npm install --save laravel-echo pusher-js

Step 5: Set up broadcasting in config/broadcasting.php by updating the default broadcaster to Pusher:

'connections' => [
    'pusher' => [
        'driver' => 'pusher',
        'key' => env('PUSHER_APP_KEY'),
        'secret' => env('PUSHER_APP_SECRET'),
        'app_id' => env('PUSHER_APP_ID'),
        'options' => [
            'cluster' => env('PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER'),
            'useTLS' => true,
        ],
    ],
],

With this, we have installed Laravel, set up Pusher to enable real-time broadcasting, and installed Laravel Echo for front-end event listening. Plus, we’ve also connected Laravel with Pusher using environment variables.

2. Database Setup and Migration

Once we have Laravel, Pusher and Echo installed and configured, then we can start with configuring the database and creating migrations. That will let us store the comments in the table.

Step 1: Configure the .env file to set up your database connection:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel_comments
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

Step 2: Now, create the migration for the comments table:

php artisan make:migration create_comments_table

Step 3: Once the table is created, modify the migration file to include the required fields:

Schema::create('comments', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->id();
    $table->text('body');
    $table->foreignId('user_id')->constrained()->onDelete('cascade');
    $table->foreignId('post_id')->constrained()->onDelete('cascade');
    $table->timestamps();
});

This will create a table with the column fields you have added. After that, all you need to create the migration, run the command:

php artisan migrate

In this step, we had set up the database configuration and created a migration to handle the comments table structure. The migration stores comment content, user IDs, and post IDs, allowing us to track who created the comments and on which post.

3. Creating Models

You need to create models for comments, users, and posts to define relationships between them. Here are the steps how:

Step 1: Create the comment model by running the artisan command:

php artisan make:model Comment

Step 2: Define relationships in the Comment model (app/Models/Comment.php):

class Comment extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['body', 'user_id', 'post_id'];
    public function user() {
        return $this->belongsTo(User::class);
    }
    public function post() {
        return $this->belongsTo(Post::class);
    }
}

Here, we created the Comment model and established the necessary relationships with the User and Post models. Each comment belongs to a user and a post, and we will use this to link comments in our system.

4. Creating Controllers

The next thing you need is a controller to handle the logic for storing and broadcasting comments. Here is how you can create controllers in Laravel:

Step 1: To create the CommentController, run the command:

php artisan make:controller CommentController

Step 2: In CommentController, create a store method for handling comment submission and broadcasting:

public function store(Request $request, Post $post)
{
    $request->validate([
        'body' => 'required',
    ]);
    $comment = $post->comments()->create([
        'body' => $request->body,
        'user_id' => auth()->id(),
    ]);
    broadcast(new CommentPosted($comment))->toOthers();
    return response()->json(['comment' => $comment]);
}

Now, create an event for broadcasting using the command:

php artisan make:event CommentPosted

Step 3: Once the event for broadcasting is created now, you can broadcast the comment inside the CommentPosted:

class CommentPosted implements ShouldBroadcast
{
    public $comment;
    public function __construct(Comment $comment)
    {
        $this->comment = $comment;
    }
    public function broadcastOn()
    {
        return new Channel('post.' . $this->comment->post_id);
    }
}

In this step, we created a controller for handling comment storage and an event for broadcasting new comments. The store method adds comments and triggers the broadcasting event using Pusher.

5. Creating Routes

Now, we need to define routes that will trigger the comment creation process and broadcast events.

Step 1: Open routes/web.php and add the following route:

Route::post('posts/{post}/comments', [CommentController::class, 'store'])->middleware('auth');

Step 2: Ensure you have authentication routes enabled, like:

Auth::routes();

We created a route that handles posting comments. This route is protected by authentication middleware, ensuring only logged-in users can submit comments. The route will also trigger the broadcasting event.

6. Setting Up Vue (Frontend)

For real-time updates on the frontend, use Vue.js to listen to broadcasted events and display new comments dynamically.

Step 1: Install Vue if it’s not already part of your project:

npm install vue

Step 2: Update your resources/js/app.js file to include Vue and Echo:

import Echo from "laravel-echo";
window.Pusher = require('pusher-js');
window.Echo = new Echo({
    broadcaster: 'pusher',
    key: process.env.MIX_PUSHER_APP_KEY,
    cluster: process.env.MIX_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER,
    forceTLS: true
});

Step 3: Now, create a Vue component CommentComponent.vue:

<template>
    <div>
        <ul>
            <li v-for="comment in comments" :key="comment.id">
                <strong>{{ comment.user.name }}</strong> - {{ comment.body }}
            </li>
        </ul>
        <form @submit.prevent="submitComment">
            <textarea v-model="newComment"></textarea>
            <button type="submit">Post Comment</button>
        </form>
    </div>
</template>
<script>
export default {
    props: ['postId'],
    data() {
        return {
            comments: [],
            newComment: ''
        };
    },
    mounted() {
        axios.get(`/api/posts/${this.postId}/comments`).then(response => {
            this.comments = response.data;
        });
        window.Echo.channel(`post.${this.postId}`).listen('CommentPosted', (e) => {
            this.comments.push(e.comment);
        });
    },
    methods: {
        submitComment() {
            axios.post(`/posts/${this.postId}/comments`, { body: this.newComment })
                .then(response => {
                    this.newComment = '';
                });
        }
    }
}
</script>

Here, we configured Vue.js with Laravel Echo to listen for new comment events broadcast in real time. When a new comment is posted, it is dynamically added to the comment list without refreshing the page.

7. Create Comment State

We need to create a state for storing and updating the comments on the front end. Here is the example code you can add to CommentSection.vue to set up state management for comments:

data() {
    return {
        comments: [],
        newComment: '',
    };
},
methods: {
    fetchComments() {
        axios.get(`/posts/${this.postId}/comments`).then(response => {
            this.comments = response.data;
        });
    },
    addComment() {
        axios.post('/comments', { comment: this.newComment, post_id: this.postId }).then(response => {
            this.comments.push(response.data.comment);
            this.newComment = '';
        });
    }
},

Here, we ensured the component maintains a state that dynamically updates when new comments are posted. That will keep the commenting section live and make the user experience smooth.

8. Create Components

Lastly, we need to integrate the Vue components into the Laravel application to render and display comments in real-time. Here is the implementation code where we use the Blade template to include the Vue component:

@extends('layouts.app')
@section('content')
    <div class="container">
        <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
        <p>{{ $post->body }}</p>
        <comment-component :post-id="{{ $post->id }}"></comment-component>
    </div>
@endsection

Here, we integrated the Vue CommentComponent into the Blade view, allowing users to see real-time comment updates on the post page. Now, let’s test whether the web app is running as expected or not. You can do it by running the commands:

npm run watch
php artisan serve

If you are able to see the tables created with various comments on posts, the project will be completed successfully.

With that, we have built a real-time commenting system using Laravel, Pusher, and Echo. If you are finding it hard to follow through, consider getting in touch with our Laravel development company. We can provide you with the right expertise to build a customizable site with features like live commenting and more.

FAQs About Building a Laravel Comment System

Winding it Up

By leveraging various development technologies like Pusher and Vuje.js with Laravel at the backend, we have created a robust comment system. In this setup, we used Laravel to handle server-side logic, Pusher as the real-time broadcasting technology, and Vue.js to create the front end.

You can start the process of building a comment system by installing the required technologies and then creating models and controllers. Once we are done with the backend, you can create routes and set up the front end by creating various states of the site. After you have completed that, you can test the website to ensure it’s working as expected.

If you are looking to build such custom features, which are also essential for user engagement, hire Laravel developers.