Inertia - shared data on certain pages

@bugsysha Sadly that just shows how to use shared data for all pages, which I am already doing. My problem is limiting which pages it is actually shown on (like a view composer)

https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/views#attaching-a-composer-to-multiple-views

@Sinnbeck then my memory tricked me that it was covered in that video. Sorry. Can you explain what is the problem if you have the data on all pages?

@bugsysha I have created an intranet where the whole site is built on inertia. Every page has the same menu where I have shared data like the menu structure.. Not the problem is that I have made a few other types of pages, that is not using the same layout/menu, and therefor does not need any of that stuff. So I am trying to find an elegant way of ensuring that those pieces of shared data isnt used.

@Sinnbeck there is nothing from stopping you to control it from that middleware as it was shown in the video. Just make it a bit dynamic so it does not get messy.

@bugsysha Yeah I have been considering using an array, like with the one in CSRF, to tell it which routes to not add the shared data to. I was just hoping for a cleaner solution :)

@Sinnbeck would something like this clean things up?

class HandleInertiaRequests extends Middleware
{
    public function share(Request $request)
    {
		$methodName = $this->convertCurrentRouteToMethodName($request);
        return array_merge(parent::share($request), $this->$methodName());
    }
}

Ofc, you can always do the same with classes. Just make classes invokable.

class HandleInertiaRequests extends Middleware
{
    public function share(Request $request)
    {
		$className = $this->convertCurrentRouteToClassName($request);
        return array_merge(parent::share($request), new $className);
    }
}

@bugsysha Currently I am trying to make some sort of clever macro to allow me to make my own "view" composer :)

Hi, @Sinnbeck could you show us how you were able to accomplish this with some examples? Thank you

@psalcedodev I just made a middleware class with the needed shared data

    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        Inertia::share([
            'menu'  => function () {
                return (new Menu)->main();
            },
        ]);

        return $next($request);
    }

and used it on a route group

Route::middleware([
    SharedMenu::class, //this is the middleware class
    'auth',
])->group(function () {

@Sinnbeck Thanks for this idea/suggestion. I was searching around for a better solution than using the default Intertia middleware.

What I was contemplating doing is making use of Pinia, Axios and hitting an API endpoint that way I could use that specific data in whatever component I wanted and not touch Inertia's middleware.

Unfortunately, that led me down a rabbit hole, taking way to much time and resources to implement. I do hope they find a better way to share data besides props drilling or provide/inject.

@Sinnbeck just curious, why not a different layout customized for those pages?

@jlrdw they do have different layouts. But each layout needs different data from laravel. In my case I have an admin panel that needs a menu structure based on permissions, and a chat which needs a user list and unread message counts. Both have different layouts but need completely different data from laravel.

@jd45 glad it could help. Yeah doing it yourself would probably be tricky and go against inertia. You can try checking out kinetic. It's view composers for inertia

@Sinnbeck Thank you! Looks like it is exactly what I need!