[Proposal] Change recommended way of extending Backpack Addon classes

[tabacitu]

As mentioned here on twitter... I'm now wondering if we should make the way @lambasoft suggested the recommended way to extend add-ons in the future...

So instead of creating a routes file, that basically overwrites all routes, and changing the controller it points to, we would do:

This will make Laravel load that one class, instead of that one other class from the package.

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The way I see it:

PROs:

• cleaner;
• more surgical (only overwrite one controller instead of all routes);

CONs:

• less clear that it changes the simple routefile - controller - view paradign;
• a lot of devs are not used to doing things inside AppServiceProvider;

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But I guess we can work around the first CON by also suggesting following a convention:

• add Extended at the end of your extended controller name (so UserCrudControllerExtended); that way it's easy to understand from the class name that it's an extended class;
• add a DocBlock before your extended controller, explaining that the extended controller is loaded because it's been overwritten inside app\Providers\AppServiceProvider;

And we could work around the second CON (maybe, not sure this is better in any way) by not doing that inside the AppServiceProvider at all. We could instead provide a new config inside config/backpack/base.php, where developers could specify "replace X with Y" for all Backpack or Backpack-related classes. But... wouldn't this be even more obscure? 👀

// Use your own classes instead of the ones provided by Backpack, or by a Backpack addon.
// Reads as "instead of class X, use class Y".
'extended_classes' => [
    \VendorName\PackageName\Http\Controllers\ExampleController::class => \App\Http\Controllers\ExampleControllerExtended,
],

What's definitely cool is that we could even automate the above. We could (or maybe should) create a command, something like php artisan backpack:extend Path\To\Class\Name that would:

• create a new Controller/Model/Request/etc file inside the appropriate app folder, with the Extended suffix, and a DocBlock explaining how the class is reached;
• add a bind() statement either inside AppServiceProvider or inside config/backpack/base.php::extended_classes;

That would make it super-easy to extend something from a package. Maybe even... too easy? 🤣

@lambasoft , @DoDSoftware , @pxpm what do you think? Anybody else have thoughts on this?