If, a few weeks ago, you’d told your kids that you were all going to TAKE A TRIP TO DISNEY WORLD and then added the caveat, “from the comfort of our own home,” chances are there would have been a mutiny. But, as we all know, things have changed. Standards have been lowered. Now, riding Splash Mountain from the living room couch might not seem like such a bad idea.

We’ve written before about how you can use YouTube videos to prepare kids for potentially anxiety-producing events—such as riding a rollercoaster. But you can also use those same videos to make your way across Magic Kingdom without ever needing to take a step, complain about the length of a line or manage a meltdown.

As Christina Marfice reminds us on Scary Mommy, there are entire channels on YouTube that provide videos taken by riders on Disney parks attractions:

That means anyone with a device and an internet connection can relive the magic. And it’s even better if you have a virtual reality headset or smartphone mount. Then, the videos become fully immersive experiences, basically like being back at Disneyland before the world almost totally shut down.

Is it the same as actually being on the ride? As someone who has been to Disney World a handful of times, I can categorically state that it is not. But are some of the ride videos surprisingly satisfying? They are—especially now, when the thought of being in such a germy place, among tight crowds of people, seems like such a quaint concept from a more innocent era.

So where to start? You don’t have to plan your day around your FastPass times and you can bounce back and forth across the park in mere seconds. Since I’m the one writing this and Pirates of the Caribbean is my favorite ride, let’s start there.

All those people! Touching all the surfaces! And then touching their faces with abandon! 2019 really was a simpler time. That was fun, but I’ve got Splash Mountain on the brain; let’s go there next.

If your kids like a bit of a thrill (but not too much!), the Barnstormer roller coaster is a good option. I chose this particular video because it’s a gloomy, rainy day at Disney, the park is basically deserted and it just feels … right:

If you prefer more people and more sunshine, try the Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster. Yes, I know, this ride is in an entirely different park (Hollywood Studios). Does it matter? No, it does not—there are no rules here!

Is it time for the Frozen ride, yet? Yes, I thought so. Come on, let’s head to Epcot; it’s right over here:

Okay, I wasn’t even going to click on the video for the Avatar ride (Animal Kingdom) because it’s such an incredible in-person experience that I was sure I would be disappointed. I was not. If I can’t be physically on this ride right now, at least I’ve got this:

If you haven’t had enough, the LMG Vids YouTube Channel has playlists of rides from a variety of theme parks, including all the Disney parks in Orlando and California, Legoland California, Knott’s Berry Farm, and the Tokyo and Hong Kong Disneylands.

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Popular weather app and data-collection service Dark Sky has been acquired by Apple for an undisclosed sum, a blog post from the Dark Sky team announced. The post claims that Dark Sky will now “reach far more people, with far more impact, than we ever could alone.”

The iOS app will not see any changes “at this time,” and it will continue to be listed on the App Store. Android and Wear OS are a different story, though. The Android app will no longer be available for download, and “service to existing users and subscribers will continue until July 1, 2020, at which point the app will be shut down.” Active subscribers will get a refund.

As for the website, which is also popular:

Weather forecasts, maps, and embeds will continue until July 1, 2020. The website will remain active beyond that time in support of API and iOS App customers.

A lot seems to be up in the air about where this will go in the long term, though. Dark Sky is notable in part for its big data-driven Dark Sky Forecast API, which provides customers with hyper-local weather data for use in their own apps or services. That API will no longer accept new signups, though “service for existing customers is not changing today.” The API will function for existing customers through the end of 2021.

That API and the related data operation may be the main reason Apple was interested in Dark Sky; the service is known for providing smart notifications and highly localized data about precipitation, among other things, in much more detail than Apple’s own Weather app.

The blog post also notes that Dark Sky will now be subject to Apple’s privacy policy, and the app’s developer is already listed as “Apple” in the App Store.

Listing image by Dark Sky

A core part of any project is understanding how to validate the incoming request from your users and in this tutorial let’s look at how we can setup validation with our controllers, form requests, and rules.

Working with Controllers

By default, all Laravel controllers that extend from the Base Controller inherit the ValidatesRequests trait.

The ValidatesRequests trait gives you access to the validate method in your controller methods.

For example, say the user is creating an Article:

They may be entering a name, and some content for this article, along with a date to publish. Your controller validation may look like one of these, which are all valid:

public function store(Request $request) { $this->validate($request, [ 'name' => 'required|string', 'body' => 'required|string', 'publish_at' => 'required|date_format:Y-m-d H:i:s' ]); // The request validated and this code will get run ... } public function store(Request $request) { // Note: the array syntax is also available $request->validate([ 'name' => ['required', 'string'], 'body' => ['required', 'string'], 'publish_at' => ['required', 'date_format:Y-m-d H:i:s'], ]); // The request validated and this code will get run ... } public function store() { request()->validate([ // Validation Rules... ]); // The request validated and this code will get run ... } public function store() { $this->validate(request(), [ // Validation Rules... ]); // The request validated and this code will get run ... } 

It should also be noted, that the response to the validate method will be the data that was validated:

public function store(Request $request) { $validatedData = $request->validate([ 'name' => ['required', 'string'], 'body' => ['required', 'string'], 'publish_at' => ['required', 'date_format:Y-m-d H:i:s'], ]); // I know that the only keys in validated data are the ones that were successfully validated, i.e.: name, body, published_at $this->articleService->store($validatedData); } 

Alternatively, you can do this too:

public function store(Request $request) { $request->validate([ 'name' => ['required', 'string'], 'body' => ['required', 'string'], 'publish_at' => ['required', 'date_format:Y-m-d H:i:s'], ]); // I know that the only keys in validated data are the ones that were successfully validated, i.e.: name, body, published_at $this->articleService->store($request->only('name', 'body', 'published_at')); } 

A list of the available validation rules can be found here.

Working with Form Requests

If you would like to extract your validation logic away from your controllers, or you would like to do authorization and validation at the same time, Laravel makes the Form Request class available to you.

You can make a form request class using one of the many built-in Laravel generators:

php artisan make:request StoreArticleRequest 

This will make you the following class in app/Http/Requests by default:

class StoreArticleRequest extends FormRequest { public function authorize() { return true; } public function rules() { return [ // ]; } } 

Form request classes comes with 2 methods, authorize and rules.

Authorize

Authorize lets you prevent the controller code from running if this method returns false. Laravel will throw a 401 unauthorized exception.

An example usage might be:

public function authorize() { return $this->user()->can('create articles'); } 

Rules

The rules method will return our array of rules that was in our controller validate method;

public function rules() { return [ 'name' => ['required', 'string'], 'body' => ['required', 'string'], 'publish_at' => ['required', 'date_format:Y-m-d H:i:s'], ]; } 

Note: You can type-hint any dependencies needed into the rules method.

So, how do we use this class? We type-hint it right into our controller method:

public function store(StoreArticleRequest $request) { // Validation and Rules passed } 

If the validation fails, the user will be redirected back with the errors flashed to the session. If it is an AJAX call, it will be a 422 Unprocessable Entity response.

You may get the validated data just like before:

public function store(StoreArticleRequest $request) { $validatedData = $request->validated(); // Insert into database ... } 

Working with Custom Rule Classes

If there is a validation rule that does not exist as part of the available built-in validation rules, you can create a custom one:

Again, using one of Laravel’s make commands:

php artisan make:rule IsValidStateInUSA 

This will make you the following class in app/Rules by default:

class IsValidStateInUSA implements Rule { public function passes($attribute, $value) { // } public function message() { return 'The validation error message.'; } } 

Your passes method holds the logic for allowing this validation method through. The message method is the message that gets returned if it fails.

Using the example of Is a valid State in the USA, we would need the item passed in to be one of 50 different state codes. It could look like this:

class IsValidStateInUSA implements Rule { public function passes($attribute, $value) { return in_array(strtoupper($value), [ 'AL', 'AK', 'AZ', ... ]); } public function message() { return 'This is not a valid state code in the USA.'; } } 

Then, to use this in your controller or form request, you just add it to the list of validation rules for that key:

public function store(Request $request) { $request->validate([ 'state' => ['required', new IsValidStateInUSA], ]); ... } 

Handling Validation Errors

When validation fails, Laravel will automatically redirect back, with an $errors variables flashed in the session.

You can easily create a file called messages.blade.php and include in your master layout file like this:

@if($errors->any()) <div class="alert alert-danger" role="alert"> <button type="button" class="close" data-dismiss="alert" aria-label="Close"> <span aria-hidden="true">×</span> </button> @foreach($errors->all() as $error) <br/> @endforeach </div> @endif 

Which will display all errors flashed to the session, or if you prefer to handle them one by one on a per blade file basis, you can use the blade @error helper:

@error('title') <div class="alert alert-danger"></div> @enderror 

The $message variable will be provided to you inside the @error tag.

Customizing Error Messages

When working with the validate method, you can override the messages with the third parameter:

public function store(Request $request) { $this->validate($request, [ 'name' => 'required|string', 'body' => 'required|string', 'publish_at' => 'required|date_format:Y-m-d H:i:s' ], [ 'name.required' => 'A article name is required', 'body.required' => 'A article body is required', 'publish_at.date_format' => 'The publish at date is not in the correct format.' ]); // The request validated and this code will get run ... } 

When working with a form request class, a messages function can also be implemented to customize the error message for each specific rule:

public function messages() { return [ 'name.required' => 'A article name is required', 'body.required' => 'A article body is required', 'publish_at.date_format' => 'The publish at date is not in the correct format.' ]; } 

For the most up to date documentation and a much more in-depth look at validation, visit the Laravel Documentation.

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