Everything That You Would like to Know about Laravel’s Latest Version 6.0

Laravel, one of the most famous and popular open-source PHP based framework which has been the preferred choice of web developers across the world has recently released its latest version 6.0. Laravel’s community members’ knack of making the development process easier and faster is what makes it the most chosen development platform online. Be it any common activities like authentication, caching or any other, the community has ensured that each and every process is optimized to the maximum extent and development process is simplified. 

 

The entire web developers segment was excited with the release of version 5.0 in February 2016 because of the amazing features like built-in authentication system, multiple file support facilities, and much such wonderful features it was loaded with. The best thing about Laravel is when you get an open-source platform with dedicated support and updated version releases from the hardworking community members then there is nothing like it. 

 

Developers across the world add their efforts to customize the solution as per client’s requirements and make the best out of the open-source platform, but if the platform itself is robust and loaded with advanced features then the results are also impeccable! And that not only builds the confidence of the developers but also amazes the clients who are going to use the solutions. 

 

So, moving forward to the new exciting news of Laravel version 6.0, a member has joined the team of Laravel family! We shall discuss in detail about the same, till then let the climax be a secret. In this post, we shall be discussing the latest updates, features and how these features will be useful to all of you. 

 

Laravel 6.0 Version is the New LTS

 

As per the release, a table is shown below, the Laravel 6.0 is the new LTS that comes with long term bug fixes till 3rd September 2021 and security fixes until 3rd September 2022. The version before 6.0, i.e. version 5.5 had security fixes until 30th August 2020. So for detailed information about the release dates for each of the Laravel versions, you can check-out the below table:

Updates on Laravel Version 6.0

 

Based on the release note published on the official website of Laravel by its team, below are the few updates that you would like to take note of:

 

- Semantic Versioning

 

With the release of version 6.0, all upcoming versions in Laravel will have semantic versioning. Going forward Laravel will also adapt the new trend of semantic versioning system by which they can keep track of the rapidly increasing releases and targets. As per the latest semantic versioning of Laravel, the version number will consist of 3 components, either, X or Y or Z, in which X is the major version, Y is minor and Z will be used for a patch.

 

- Enhancement in Authorization Responses

 

If you are a Laravel developer, business owner offering Laravel custom services or business owner looking for the updates on the latest features of Laravel for your next project, this feature is useful for everyone. As a Laravel developer one will be able to easily connect with the number of effort required to add custom error messages for end-users at the time of authorization process. Well, with 6.0, the magic is introduced in the form of Gate::inspect method which simply facilitates the system to release authorization policy.

 

- Custom Job Middleware

 

The features named Job Middleware has been specially designed and developed to simplify the process of allowing jobs to run using Middleware. With the help of this feature, one can avoid building custom logic in the body of the job’s hand() method.

 

- Lazy Collections

 

As an experienced Laravel developer and behalf of the company that offers custom Laravel solutions to various national and international clients across the world would like to thank the Laravel team for launching this feature. This feature will completely transform the way developers work and enable them to easily work with a large number of datasets at low memory. The best thing is it seamlessly works with the eloquent model collections as well. For that, you can be thankful to the new class Illuminate\Support\LazyCollection.

 

E.g. If you are working on a large dataset say approximately several gigabytes in size which need to be processed and the logs need to be parsed.  With the help of Lazy Collections feature in the latest Laravel version, the system does not have to read the entire file into the memory instantly, rather it can save a portion of the file in memory at a given point of time. In order to create the Lazy Collections, one needs to pass the PHP generator function to the collection’s make method.

 

- Enhancements in Eloquent Subquery Feature

 

The simple and best method of reducing the consumption of memory used by the application is by pushing more work in the database layer in the Laravel applications. So this will not only reduce the consumption of memory used by the application but also reduces the number of database queries and also reduces the time taken to process models by eloquent. The simplest way of adding more work to the database layers is by generating more subqueries that run nested queries in other database queries. At the same time, the subqueries can also be generated using statements and clauses. Some of the formats of using the subqueries are ‘Select’ subqueries ‘Order By’ subqueries and ‘From’ where the subqueries. In the next post, we will cover the detailed version of Eloquent Subquery Enhancements in Laravel 6.0 version. 

 

- User Interface of Laravel

 

Laravel 5.X versions came with the frontend scaffolding while in the latest version 6.0 it has been extracted into an individual UI composer package. With this change, you have the flexibility to iterate the first party UI scaffolding on an individual primary framework.

 

- Laravel Spark

 

If you have not been much excited with the above features launched by Laravel 6.0 then we are sure that you would like the Laravel Spark. This portion of the latest version has been loaded with the latest features that is exciting as its name – Spark. The attractive features in this version are seat pricing, location and bootstrapping as well as a fresh user interface. It also comes with some additional security features which take this version to the next level in terms of security features.

 

Here are some of the major features which are covered in the latest version of Laravel Spark 6.0:

 

- Per Seat Pricing

 

The ‘Per Seat Pricing’ is a new feature added with the latest version which was not seen in Laravel 5.7 or 5.8. This feature will be highly beneficial for users & teams as it allows pricing based on hours of usage records. With the help of this feature, Laravel Spark, developers will not only be able to charge users and teams based on the projects developed but also ease out the billing structure. This step from Laravel enables developers to bring the application to a logical conclusion.

 

- Localization

 

This feature in Laravel Spark is also an interesting feature. With the help of Localization, Laravel 6.0 users will be able to translate the applications built on Spark in the preferred language or as per the client’s preferred language. In addition, it also supports text layouts from right to left.

 

- Amazing User Interface and Bootstrap 4 Release

 

This version of Laravel Spark comes with Bootstrap 4.0 which is loaded with the latest Bootstrap CSS framework. With the help of these features, developers have great freedom to create attractive UI. Using the stripe elements, users can collect the payment details and perform online transactions without any risk of online frauds.

 

- Admin Panel

 

With the help of latest admin panel offered in the current version, developing web applications can be much faster and simpler. The admin panel will be useful in managing the data and permissions assigned without the need for coding. This enhances the flexibility for the developers and they can focus on presenting the data in the best way. The pricing of the Laravel Spark is similar to the previous versions. And to avoid any kind of confusion among the users, each version will now come with a unique code name.

 

- Major Advantages of Laravel Spark

 

Apart from the amazing features that are added in the latest version, here are some of the major advantages that users will experience by using the new version.

 

- Laravel developers will be able to upgrade their applications developed using previous versions. The installation of the spark will be updated all the time.

- Mobile applications developed using the latest version Laravel Spark can be customized using minimal coding

- Developers can instantly inform and update their customers at any time. It allows you to stay connected with customers all the time.

 

Now that you have understood about the latest changes in Laravel 6.0 and Laravel Spark, it is time that you should know about the new member in the family – Laravel Vapor.

 

Introducing Laravel Vapor

 

From the viewpoint and announcement of Taylor Otwell “Laravel is a serverless deployment platform for Laravel, powered by AWS. Launch your Laravel infrastructure on Vapor and fall in love with the scalable simplicity of serverless”.

 

Major things that you would like to know about Laravel Vapor

 

- In order to upgrade to the latest Laravel Vapor, users need Laravel version 5.8

- For implementing the assets make use of the ‘asset()’ function

- If you are a new user in AWS then you need to increase limits in regions like EU

 

Benefits of Laravel Vapor That You Should Know

 

- As per the demo presented by Otwell, Laravel Vapor is capable of handling more than half of million requests within an average time of 12 minutes

- By using a single paid plan, you can create as many teams as you want.

- It facilitates you with the control over activities of each team member working on different resources of Vapor.

- Vapor offers an accessible staging domain which is named ‘Vanity URL’ by Otwell. With the help of this feature, you can access your application using a domain that can be easily shared across your colleagues until you are assigned a custom domain.

- Vapor also offers environment metrics that give an overview of the application’s environment. The metrics include the number of HTTP requests received by the application within the last 24 hours, the number of CLI invocations, and the average time duration of CLI invocations and how much does it cost on Lambda, etc.

- Using Vapor UI, you can search and review the recent logs. Whenever there is a new entry in the log it automatically updates.

- Vapor comes with two types of database and it is a serverless and fixed size. So in order to utilize the fixed size database, you need to choose the specifications of  RAM, VCPU, etc. In serverless, as the name suggests, no need to choose anything.

 

Final Take

 

Just like the previous versions of Laravel, the latest version has also created the flutter among the community and users’ market. The constant community support, latest version release and, bug fixes are making it more famous and ready for the future platform. If you want to share your inputs, experience or opinion with us then keep us posted in the comments section. We would be glad to know your inputs.