[5.8] Add template theme to mail notifications

[troccoli]

It is already possible, and quite easily, to set a theme for any Mailables. This is not the case for the mail Notifications, which always use the default theme.

With this PR it would be possible to do something like

public function toMail($notifiable)
{
  $url = url('/invoice/'.$this->invoice->id);

  return (new MailMessage)
      ->theme('notification')
      ->greeting('Hello!')
      ->line('One of your invoices has been paid!')
      ->action('View Invoice', $url)
      ->line('Thank you for using our application!');
}

This will use notification.css theme in resources/views/vendor/mail/html/themes.

[troccoli]

Would there be any interest in backporting this to 5.7?

We are using 5.7 here and it would be useful for us.

[GrahamCampbell]

Laravel 5.7 is not accepting new features now, since it is EOL. Only security fixes. Please upgrade to Laravel 5.8.

[martinbean]

Please upgrade to Laravel 5.8.

@GrahamCampbell Upgrading a framework is easier said that done for some teams and products. Especially if 5.7 to 5.8 is a major framework upgrade as defined here: https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/releases#versioning-scheme

[driesvints]

@martinbean Laravel Shift can help you: https://laravelshift.com/

[martinbean]

@driesvints I’m not having issues upgrading…?

I was just empathising with @troccoli and trying to convey to @GrahamCampbell that not every developer is able to perform an upgrade to a major framework version every ~6 months, i.e. if a developer is working for a company with limited resources.

[driesvints]

@martinbean you said:

Upgrading a framework is easier said that done for some teams and products.

So I was just pointing out to a tool that could help you upgrade faster/easier.

[martinbean]

@driesvints Again, it’s not me in that situation, but have worked in product teams in the past where shipping features is a higher priority for teams than keeping package versions up to date.

[driesvints]

@martinbean I don't want to get into a "priority" discussion here. I've worked in teams before where upgrading isn't always a top priority. But you're gonna be left behind and run into security risks/bugs eventually if you do. Expecting others to keep maintaining old versions if you're not willing to upgrade is kind of demanding if you ask me.

[GrahamCampbell]

LTS releases are also available. For example, StyleCI is actually running on Laravel 5.5 LTS. This is so I don't have to spent lots of time upgrading every few months.

[GrahamCampbell]

Features are very rarely backported however. If you need new features from the core, then upgrading is the only way.

[DevDavido]

Nice idea, definitely like it! It would be great though to get it documented in the docs.

[troccoli]

Absolutely @DevDavido. I'm on holiday atm though so it will have to wait a week or two.

And with regards to all the comments about my asking about 5.7 I just want to say that I'm ok not doing it. I find it a bit odd that it already accept only security fixes but it's not my repo or my policy.

[jackwh]

Unless I'm misunderstanding, I don't think this change is backwards-compatible — it's broken the custom Markdown mail styling I was using in my app.

In src/Illuminate/Notifications/Messages/MailMessage.php, the $theme property is now being set:

/**
 * The current theme being used when generating emails.
 *
 * @var string|null
 */
public $theme = 'default';

Previously, the MailServiceProvider determined the Markdown theme based on your config file:

return new Markdown($this->app->make('view'), [
    'theme' => $config->get('mail.markdown.theme', 'default'),
    'paths' => $config->get('mail.markdown.paths', []),
]);

After this change, anyone who had changed their mail.php config item for mail.markdown.theme will no longer see their custom theme being used as the default. Instead, they'll have to manually specify which theme to use on every Notification class.

[troccoli]

That's interesting. Which version are you using? The reason I submitted the PR was that I needed an easy way to change the theme for notification and I didn't find one in 5.7.