Approving comments | laravel-comments | Spatie

 SPATIE

laravel-comments
================

spatie.be/open-source

  [Docs](https://spatie.be/docs)  [Laravel-comments](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2)  Basic-usage  Approving comments

 Version   v2   v1

 Other versions for crawler [v2](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2) [v1](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v1)

- [ Introduction ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/introduction)
- [ Getting a license ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/getting-a-license)
- [ Requirements ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/requirements)
- [ Installation & setup ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/installation-setup)
- [ Questions and issues ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/questions-issues)
- [ Changelog ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/changelog)
- [ Upgrade guide ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/upgrade)
- [ About us ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/about-us)

Basic usage
-----------

- [ Working with comments ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/basic-usage/working-with-comments)
- [ Working with reactions ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/basic-usage/working-with-reactions)
- [ Transforming comments ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/basic-usage/transforming-comments)
- [ Sending notifications ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/basic-usage/sending-notifications)
- [ Approving comments ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/basic-usage/approving-comments)
- [ Listing comments in Laravel Nova ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/basic-usage/listing-comments-in-laravel-nova)

Livewire components
-------------------

- [ Introduction ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/introduction)
- [ Installation ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/installation)
- [ Using the components ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/using-the-components)
- [ Taking care of authorization ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/taking-care-of-authorization)
- [ Customising the views ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/customising-the-views)
- [ Mentions ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/mentions)
- [ Miscellaneous options ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/miscellaneous-options)
- [ Using Markdown ](https://spatie.be/docs/laravel-comments/v2/livewire-components/using-markdown)

 Approving comments
==================

###  On this page

1. [ Preparation ](#content-preparation)
2. [ Determining if a comment should be automatically approved ](#content-determining-if-a-comment-should-be-automatically-approved)
3. [ Sending and customizing the approval notification ](#content-sending-and-customizing-the-approval-notification)
4. [ Approving a comment via code ](#content-approving-a-comment-via-code)
5. [ Determining if a comment is approved ](#content-determining-if-a-comment-is-approved)
6. [ Scoping on approved comments ](#content-scoping-on-approved-comments)

By default, all comments are marked as approved. Optionally, you can let the admins of your application manually approve comments. The admins will get a notification for each comment that is posted. That notification will contain links to approve or reject the comment.

Preparation
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First, you must set the `automatically_approve_all_comments` config option to `false`.

```
// config/comments.php

return [
    // ...

    /*
     * Comments need to be approved before they are shown. You can opt
     * to have all comments to be approved automatically.
     */
    'automatically_approve_all_comments' => false,
]
```

Next, you must pass a callable to `PendingCommentNotification::sendTo()`. The callable will receive the `$comment` that is pending, and it should return the users that should receive the notification to approve/reject it.

```
// typically, in a service provider

PendingCommentNotification::sendTo(function(Comment $comment) {
    return User::where('is_admin', true)->get(); // select some users
});
```

Finally, you must register the routes used to approve/reject a comment.

```
// in a routes file

Route::comments();
```

Determining if a comment should be automatically approved
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you set `automatically_approve_all_comments` in the `comments` config file to `true` then all new comments will need to be approved.

Optionally, you can make this more fine-grained. Imagine that you only want to approve comments for users that are less then three months in your system.

To get started, you must use a custom `Comment` model. Create a class of your own and let it extend `Spatie\Comments\Models\Comment`.

```
use Spatie\Comments\Models\Comment;

class CustomComment extends Comment
{
    // ...
}
```

Next, you must register that custom comment class in the `comments` config file.

```
// config/comments.php

return [
    'models' => [
        'comment' => CustomComment::class
    ],
]
```

With that in place, you can now add a method `shouldBeAutomaticallyApproved` to the model that will contain the logic to determine if a comment should be approved.

```
use Spatie\Comments\Models\Comment;

class CustomComment extends Comment
{
    public function shouldBeAutomaticallyApproved(): bool
    {

        // $this->commentator is the user that created the comment
        if ($this->commentator->created_at->diffInMonths() < 3) {
            return false;
        }

        // automatically approve the comment is the user that
        // created the comment can also approve it
        return $this->getApprovingUsers()->contains($currentUser);
    }
}
```

Let's take a look at another example. You might want to only automatically approve comments if they don't contain certain words.

```
use Illuminate\Support\Str;
use Spatie\Comments\Models\Comment;

class CustomComment extends Comment
{
    public function shouldBeAutomaticallyApproved(): bool
    {
        if (Str::contains($this->original_text, [
            'bad-word',
            'another-bad-word'
        ])) {
            return false;
        }

        return $this->getApprovingUsers()->contains($currentUser);
    }
}
```

Sending and customizing the approval notification
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When a new comment is made that should be approved, the `PendingCommentNotification` is sent to the users returned by the closure passed to `PendingCommentNotification::sendTo`. That notification will have links to approve/reject a comment.

By default, the notification will be a mail which looks like this.

![screenshot](/docs/laravel-comments/v1/images/approval-mail.png)

### Customizing the notification

The sender email and name can of the mail can be changed in the `notifications.mail` key of the `comments` config file.

If you want to customize the content of the sent mail, you can [publish the views](/docs/laravel-comments/v1/livewire-components/customising-the-views). The mail view will be published at `/resources/views/vendor/comments/mail/pendingCommentNotification.blade.php`.

To customize the notification class itself, you can create a notification of your own that extends `Spatie\Comments\Notifications\PendingCommentNotification`. You must update the `notifications.notifications.pending_comment` value of the `comments` config file, with the name of your class.

To get full control over what should happen when a new pending comment is submitted, you can override the `actions.send_notifications_for_pending_comment` key in the `comments` config file.

Approving a comment via code
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To approve a comment via code, you can simply call `approve()` on a comment.

```
use Spatie\Comments\Models\Comment;

$comment = \Spatie\Comments\Models\Comment::find($commentId);

$comment->approve();
```

Determining if a comment is approved
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can determine if a comment is approved with `isApproved()` and `isPending()`

```
$comment = $post->comment('a new comment');

$comment->isPending(); // returns true
$comment->isApproved(); // returns false

$comment->approve();

$comment->isPending(); // returns false
$comment->isApproved(); // returns true
```

Scoping on approved comments
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The `Comment` model has a scope to filter `approved` and `pending` comments.

```
use Spatie\Comments\Models\Comment;

Comment::approved()->get(); // returns all approved comments
Comment::pending()->get(); // returns all comments that haven't been approved yet
```