Mail

Using e-mails in your package works very much the same as in a normal Laravel application. However, in your package, you need to make sure you are loading a views directory from your package (or the end-user's exported version of it).

To start sending e-mails, we need to create 1) a new mailable and 2) an e-mail template.

The e-mail template can be in either markdown or blade template format, as you're used to. In this example, we'll focus on writing a Blade template, however if you're using a markdown template replace the $this->view('blogpackage::mails.welcome') with a call to $this->markdown('blogpackage::mails.welcome'). Notice that we're using the namespaced view name, allowing our package users to export the views and update their contents.

Creating a Mailable

First, add a new Mail folder in the src/ directory, which will contain your mailables. Let's call it WelcomeMail.php mailable. Since we've been working with a Post model in the previous sections, let's accept that model in the constructor and assign it to a public $post property on the mailable.

src/Mail/WelcomeMail.php

<?php

namespace JohnDoe\BlogPackage\Mail;

use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use JohnDoe\BlogPackage\Models\Post;

class WelcomeMail extends Mailable
{
    use Queueable, SerializesModels;

    public $post;

    public function __construct(Post $post)
    {
        $this->post = $post;
    }

    public function build()
    {
        return $this->view('blogpackage::emails.welcome');
    }
}

Registering the Views Directory

In the call to the mailable's view() method we've specified the string emails.welcome, which Laravel will translate to searching for a welcome.blade.php file in the emails directory in the package's registered views directory.

To specify a view directory, you need to add the $this->loadViews() call to your package's service provider in the boot() method. View files can be referenced by the specified namespace, in this example, 'blogpackage'. Note: if you're following along since the section about Routing, you've already done this.

BlogPackageServiceProvider.php

<?php

public function boot()
{
  // ... other things
  $this->loadViewsFrom(__DIR__.'/../resources/views', 'blogpackage');
}

This will look for views in the resources/views directory in the root of your package.

Creating a Blade Mail Template

Create the welcome.blade.php file in the resources/views/emails directory, where the $post variable will be freely available to use in the template.

resources/views/emails/welcome.blade.php

<p>
Dear reader,

Post title: {{ $post->title }}

-- Sent from the blogpackage
</p>

Testing Mailing

To test that e-mailing works and the mail contains all the right information, Laravel's Mail facade offers a built-in fake() method which makes it easy to swap the real mailer for a mock in our tests.

To demonstrate how to test our e-mail, create a new WelcomeMailTest in the tests/unit directory. Next, in the test:

• Switch the Mail implementation for a mock using Mail::fake().
• Create a Post using our factory (see section Models and Migrations).
• Assert that at this stage, no e-mails are sent using assertNothingSent().
• Send a new WelcomeMail mailable, passing in the Post model.
• Assert that the e-mail was sent and contains the correct Post model using assertSent().

<?php

namespace JohnDoe\BlogPackage\Tests\Unit;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail;
use JohnDoe\BlogPackage\Mail\WelcomeMail;
use JohnDoe\BlogPackage\Models\Post;
use JohnDoe\BlogPackage\Tests\TestCase;

class WelcomeMailTest extends TestCase
{
    /** @test */
    public function it_sends_a_welcome_email()
    {
        Mail::fake();

        $post = Post::factory()->create(['title' => 'Fake Title']);

        Mail::assertNothingSent();

        Mail::to('test@example.com')->send(new WelcomeMail($post));

        Mail::assertSent(WelcomeMail::class, function ($mail) use ($post) {
            return $mail->post->id === $post->id
                && $mail->post->title === 'Fake Title';
        });
    }
}

With this passing test, you can be sure that your package can now send e-mails.