Display email column from another table instead of referencing ID in laravel backpack

Question

3 of the tables in my database are:

1. Orders
2. Products
3. User

This is the migration of orders table

public function up()
{
    Schema::create('orders', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->foreignId('user_id')->constrained();  // FK to Users table
        $table->foreignId('product_id')->constrained();  // FK to product table
        // ...
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

Now when I am Listing all the data in my Admin panel, I want to display:

1. email (which is unique) from user Table instead of user_id
2. product_name (which is also unique) from products Table instead of product_id

app/Http/Controllers/Admin/OrderCrudController.php

[
            'name'  => 'user_id', // Table column which is FK for Customer table
            'label' => 'User', // Label for HTML form field
            'type'  => 'select2',  // HTML element which displaying transactions
            
            'placeholder' => 'Select a User', // placeholder for the select
            'allows_null' => true,
            'attribute' => 'email', // Column which user see in select box
            'minimum_input_length' => 1,
            'hint' => 'The person who ordered the product',
        ],
        [
            'name'  => 'product_id',
            'label' => 'Product',
            'type' => 'select',

            'placeholder' => 'Select a Product', // placeholder for the select
            'allows_null' => true,
            'attribute' => 'name', // Column which user see in select box
            'minimum_input_length' => 1,
            'hint'  => 'The product which was ordered',
        ],
]

---

When I use the above code in protected function setupCreateOperation() , it gives me the desired results.

But protected function setupListOperation() displays the referencing id and Not the email id.

---

Now, you can see I have used

1. 'type' => 'select2' in user_id
2. 'type' => 'select' in product_id

If I use select , it shows the expected column even in setupListOperation . But select2 does Not.

My main question is:

How can I display email column from another table instead of referencing ID using select2 in setupListOperation

---

Using Laravel Framework 8.61.0 and trying this for a long time. Any help is appreciable. Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

in setupListOperation you use Columns

there is no column in Backpack called "select2", in the end, columns are read-only and users can not input data for columns.

to display user's email, you can use select column:

[
   
   'label'     => 'email', // Table column heading
   'type'      => 'select',
   'name'      => 'user_id',
   'key'=>'email' 
   'entity'    => 'user', // the method that defines the relationship in your Model
   'attribute' => 'email', // foreign key attribute that is shown to user
   'model'     => User::class, // foreign key model
],

make sure you have user() relation in your Order model.