JQuery-Ajax-Uploader

This lightweight JQuery plugin enables basic Ajax file uploading features (select, drag & drop) on the frontend side. It is supposed to work well with any Laravel backend.

1. Requirements

• This plugin does not support the old versions of Internet Explorer.
• This plugin requires Bootstrap 4.x

You should make sure that the page html layout has the following <meta> tag:

<meta name="csrf-token" content="{{ csrf_token() }}">

Otherwise, the request may be blocked by Laravel by default. See more details at https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/csrf#csrf-x-csrf-token.

The plugin automatically checks the existence of this <meta> tag, get its content and associate X-CSRF-TOKEN header with the uploading request.

Alternatively, if and only if this <meta> tag does not exist (maybe you do not want to use, or for somewhat reasons), then you can include X-CSRF-TOKEN request header before sending files to server via beforeSend(xhr) hook as follows:

$(document).ready(function () {
    $('#image-upload').bkstar123_ajaxuploader({
        ...
        beforeSend: (xhr) => {
            xhr.setRequestHeader('X-CSRF-TOKEN', {!! json_encode(csrf_token()) !!});
        },
        ...
    });
});

2. Installation

npm install @bkstar18/jquery-ajax-uploader

3. Usage

In HTML section:
Insert a normal file input tag as follows:

<!-- use 'multiple' if you want to allow multiple files selection -->
<input type="file" class="form-control" name="image" id="image-upload" multiple>

In Javascript section:

// JQuery must be loaded before this section
<script src="/path/to/bkstar123-ajax-uploader.min.js"></script> // This minified JS file can be found at node_modules/@bkstar18/jquery-ajax-uploader/dist/ path
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function () {
    $('#image-upload').bkstar123_ajaxuploader(settings);
});
</script>

Passing settings to bkstar123_ajaxuploader() is optional. If you do not pass any argument, then the plugin will use its defaults as follows:

defaults = {
    size: 5242880, // In bytes <=> 5MB
    uploadUrl: '/upload', // Backend URL to upload file
    batchSize: 5, // Maximum number of files that can be uploaded in parallel
    allowedExtensions: ['png', 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'mp4', 'doc', 'docx', 'ppt', 'pptx', 'xls', 'xlsx', 'txt', 'pdf'], // Accepted file extensions
    progressBarColor: 'bg-primary', // set the color of the progress bar, see https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.3/components/progress/
}

All these default settings can be overwritten by the settings argument that you pass to bkstar123_ajaxuploader().

Important Note:
The plugin expects to receive JSON response from the backend with success key in case of success or error key in case of error.

Sample structure of JSON responses are as follows:
a) Success response

{
    "success": "Successfully uploaded", // mandatory key
    ...  // other key that you may add
}

b) Error response

{
    "error": "Upload failed", // mandatory key
    ...  // other key that you may add
}

Advanced use:
The plugin will automatically wrap the selected <input type="file" /> element in an outer element <div class="bkstar123-ajaxuploader-container-image-upload" id="bkstar123-ajaxuploader-container-image-upload">

Where bkstar123-ajaxuploader is a prefix that you can change by prefix key in the settings argument.

You can also add more class to the wrapping element by outerClass key in the settings argument.

There are two callback hooks that you can use, that are, beforeSend(xhr) and onResponse(response):

• beforeSend(xhr) hook is called right before sending files to the server, and it is passed with the whole XmlHttpRequest object. You can use this hook to modify the behavior of XHR object before it start sending files to the server, for example to add more request header like xhr.setRequestHeader(header, value).

• onResponse(response) hook is called when the uploading process is completed (xhr.readystate = 4, no matter success or failure). It is passed with the whole server response.

Example:

$('#image-upload').bkstar123_ajaxuploader({
    allowedExtensions: ['png','jpg','jpeg'],
    batchSize: 5,
    outerClass: 'col-md-12',
    uploadUrl: '/api/upload',
    beforeSend: (xhr) => {
        xhr.setRequestHeader('X-AUTHOR', 'TUANHA');
    },
    onResponse: (response) => {
        let res = JSON.parse(response)
        if (res.data) {
            $('#gallery').append(`<img id="${res.data.filename}" src="${res.data.url}" width="50px">`);
        }
    }
});

4. Demo

This section will demonstrate how to build a completed system (both backend & frontend) for handling Ajax file upload.

Backend:

• Built from a new & clean Laravel application with the use of bkstar123/laravel-uploader package (written by myself)
  (See its full documentation at https://github.com/bkstar123/laravel-uploader)

Frontend:

• Built with this JQuery plugin @bkstar18/jquery-ajax-uploader, of course :-)

4.1 Preparation

a) Create a new Laravel application
laravel new testproject

b) Create a symlink between public/storage and storage/app/public
cd testproject & php artisan storage:link

c) Create a photos migration
php artisan make:migration create_photos_table --table

Place the following lines in the up() function:

<?php
...
Schema::create('photos', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->bigIncrements('id');
    $table->string('filename');
    $table->string('path');
    $table->string('url');
    $table->string('disk');
    $table->timestamps();
});
...

d) Create App\Photo model
php artisan make:model Photo

Place the following lines:

<?php

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Photo extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = [
        'filename', 'url', 'path', 'disk'
    ];
}

e) Run migration
php artisan migration

Note: Of course, you must configure the database connection in .env

f) Create upload routes
In routes/web.php, place the following routes:

Route::get('/upload', 'UploadController@showUploadForm');
Route::post('/api/upload', 'UploadController@upload');

g) Create controller
php artisan make:controller UploadController

h) Scaffolding your application
php artisan make:auth

The purpose of scaffolding is just to quickly generate the master layout and other basic views for your application.

i) Install npm packages
npm install

4.2 Integrate bkstar123/laravel-uploader package to backend

a) Install bkstar123/laravel-uploader package
composer require bkstar123/laravel-uploader

b) Install @bkstar18/jquery-ajax-uploader plugin
npm install --save-dev @bkstar18/jquery-ajax-uploader

c) Bundle the plugin into the main app.js

• Place the following line in the resources/js/bootstrap.js

try {
    window.Popper = require('popper.js').default;
    window.$ = window.jQuery = require('jquery');

    require('bootstrap');
    require('@bkstar18/jquery-ajax-uploader'); // Add this line
} catch (e) {}

• Compile frontend assets
  npm run dev or npm run production

d) In UploadController

<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Photo;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Bkstar123\LaravelUploader\Contracts\FileUpload;

class UploadController extends Controller
{
    public function showUploadForm()
    {
        return view('upload');
    }

    public function upload(Request $request, FileUpload $fileupload)
    {
        $data = $fileupload->handle($request, 'image', ['allowedExtensions' => ['jpg', 'png', 'jpeg']]);
        if (!$data) {
            return response()->json(['error' => $fileupload->uploadError], 422);
        }

        Photo::create($data);
        return response()->json(['success' => "{$data['filename']} has been successfully uploaded", 'data' => $data], 200);
    }
}

e) In resources/views/upload.blade.php

Place the following code:

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
<div class="container">
    <div class="row justify-content-center">
        <div class="col-md-8">
            <div class="card">
                <div class="card-header">Upload</div>

                <div class="card-body">
                    @if (session('status'))
                        <div class="alert alert-success" role="alert">
                            {{ session('status') }}
                        </div>
                    @endif

                    <div class="form-group">
                        <label for="image-upload">Upload Images</label>
                        <input type="file" class="form-control" name="image" id="image-upload" multiple>
                        <div class="gallery" id="gallery"></div>
                    </div>
                    
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
@endsection

@push('js')
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function () {
    $('#image-upload').bkstar123_ajaxuploader({
        allowedExtensions: ['png','jpg','jpeg'],
        batchSize: 5,
        outerClass: 'col-md-12',
        uploadUrl: '/api/upload',
        beforeSend: (xhr) => {
            xhr.setRequestHeader('X-AUTHOR', 'TUANHA');
        },
        onResponse: (response) => {
            let res = JSON.parse(response)
            if (res.data) {
                $('#gallery').append(`<img id="${res.data.filename}" src="${res.data.url}" width="50px">`);
            }
        }
    });
});
</script>
@endpush

Note: In resources/views/layouts/app.blade.php, you may need to remove defer from

<!-- Scripts -->
<script src="{{ asset('js/app.js') }}" defer></script> <!-- remmove this 'defer' -->

and add @stack('js') before the closing body tag </body>.

--DONE--