This kid is about to become a super man.

In the latest TV spot for Shazam, young Billy Batson is doing the things any kid would do if he was granted super powers that transformed him into a magically gifted adult man. He’s flying! He’s transforming! He’s trying to buy a super lair! And he’s buying beer. Or trying to, anyways. I doubt Shazam’s costume comes with an ID.

It looks like an incredibly fun time, an offbeat sort of childish humor in tension both with grimdark superheroism and the snarkfest of the MCU. I’m sold. This is charming. Kid heroes are the best.

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The Laravel Excel package recently celebrated a new milestone of version 3, with new features that help ease advanced use-cases, and is simple to use. Let’s explore some of these hidden features you might not know about, that make Laravel Excel a go-to package for working with Excel.

1. Exporting from HTML/Blade

Let’s imagine you already have a list page with HTML table:

And here’s the Blade code – resources/views/customers/table.blade.php:

<table class="table">
    <thead>
    <tr>
        <th></th>
        <th>First name</th>
        <th>Last name</th>
        <th>Email</th>
        <th>Created at</th>
        <th>Updated at</th>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    @foreach ($customers as $customer)
    <tr>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
        <td></td>
    </tr>
    @endforeach
    </tbody>
</table>

You can re-use it to export the same table into Excel.

Step 1. Generate Export class

php artisan make:export CustomersFromView --model=Customer

Step 2. Use FromView to perform the operation.

namespace App\Exports;

use App\Customer;
use Illuminate\Contracts\View\View;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Concerns\FromView;

class CustomersExportView implements FromView
{
    public function view(): View
    {
        return view('customers.table', [
            'customers' => Customer::orderBy('id', 'desc')->take(100)->get()
        ]);
    }
}

Here’s the result Excel file:

Notice: you can export only HTML table, without any layout tags like html, body, div, etc.

2. Export to PDF, HTML, and others

Although the package is called Laravel Excel, it provides export to more formats. It’s straightforward to use, add one more parameter to the class:

return Excel::download(new CustomersExport(), 'customers.xlsx', 'Html');

Yes, you got it right. HTML. Here’s how it looks:

Not much styling, I know. And here’s the source:

Not only that, it allows to export to PDF, and you can even choose from three libraries for it. Again, all you need to do is specify the format as the last parameter – here’s screenshot from their docs:

Notice: you will also have to install a chosen PDF package via composer, like:

composer require dompdf/dompdf

Here’s how PDF looks like:

3. Format Cells However You Want

Laravel Excel package has a powerful “parent” – PhpSpreadsheet. So it adopts all the underneath functionality, including cell formatting in various ways.

Here’s how to use it in Laravel Export class, like app/Exports/CustomersExportStyling.php:

Step 1. Use appropriate classes in the header.

use Maatwebsite\Excel\Concerns\WithEvents;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Events\AfterSheet;

Step 2. Use WithEvents in implements section.

class CustomersExportStyling implements FromCollection, WithEvents 
{ 
    // ...

Step 3. Create registerEvents() method with AfterSheet event.

/**
 * @return array
 */
public function registerEvents(): array
{
    return [
        AfterSheet::class    => function(AfterSheet $event) {
            // ... HERE YOU CAN DO ANY FORMATTING
        },
    ];
}

Here’s an example:

/**
 * @return array
 */
public function registerEvents(): array
{
    return [
        AfterSheet::class    => function(AfterSheet $event) {
            // All headers - set font size to 14
            $cellRange = 'A1:W1'; 
            $event->sheet->getDelegate()->getStyle($cellRange)->getFont()->setSize(14);

            // Apply array of styles to B2:G8 cell range
            $styleArray = [
                'borders' => [
                    'outline' => [
                        'borderStyle' => \PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Style\Border::BORDER_THICK,
                        'color' => ['argb' => 'FFFF0000'],
                    ]
                ]
            ];
            $event->sheet->getDelegate()->getStyle('B2:G8')->applyFromArray($styleArray);

            // Set first row to height 20
            $event->sheet->getDelegate()->getRowDimension(1)->setRowHeight(20);

            // Set A1:D4 range to wrap text in cells
            $event->sheet->getDelegate()->getStyle('A1:D4')
                ->getAlignment()->setWrapText(true);
        },
    ];
}

The result of these “random” demo-styling examples looks like this:

All these examples, and many more, you can find in Recipes page of PhpSpreadsheet docs.

4. Hidden Fields From Model

Let’s imagine we’ve seeded a default Laravel 5.7 users table:

Let’s try to export this one with a simple class FromCollection:

class UsersExport implements FromCollection
{
    public function collection()
    {
        return User::all();
    }
}

In the result Excel, you will see some fields missing: password and remember_token:

This is because of this app/User.php property:

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    // ...

    /**
     * The attributes that should be hidden for arrays.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $hidden = [
        'password', 'remember_token',
    ];
}

So, these fields are hidden by default, but it shows us Laravel Excel package behavior – if you want to protect some fields from export, you can do it directly in the model.

5. Formulas

For some reason, official Laravel Excel package documentation doesn’t mention anything about formulas. But that’s the whole point of using Excel!

Luckily, it’s straightforward to write formulas into our exported file. We need to set cell values like we would to in Excel, for example, =A2+1 or SUM(A1:A10).

One of the ways to do it is to use WithMapping:

use App\Customer;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Concerns\FromCollection;
use Maatwebsite\Excel\Concerns\WithMapping;

class CustomersExportFormulas implements FromCollection, WithMapping
{
    public function collection()
    {
        return Customer::all();
    }

    /**
     * @var Customer $customer
     * @return array
     */
    public function map($customer): array
    {
        return [
            $customer->id,
            '=A2+1',
            $customer->first_name,
            $customer->last_name,
            $customer->email,
        ];
    }
}

So, these are just five less-known features of Laravel Excel. If you want to find out more, I have a unique online course called Excel Export/Import in Laravel, go check it out!

We’ve all had that moment. You smartphone battery is running low, and you’re desperate for some juice. But just how desperate have you gotten? Desperate enough to plug your phone into an NSA charging station? Because some people are seriously facing that choice right now.

Shmoocon, a hacker conference that started today and runs through the weekend, includes a cutesy display with this exact dilemma. The text on the NSA’s display even says, “You know you want to try it!”

NSA official Rob Joyce tweeted out a photo of the display (above), and the spy agency says that it’s in on the joke.

“It’s tongue-in-cheek,” NSA media relations officer Chris Augustine told Gizmodo over the phone. “It was created for this event so that it would allow for… exactly what you’re seeing on Twitter.”

And what you’re seeing on Twitter is a tweet that’s starting to go viral with comments like, “what could go wrong?” and “totally not a trap.”

“We’re trying be edgy,” Augustine continues with a laugh.

But if you’re heading to a hacker conference, you’re probably going to want to lock your shit down. And that includes not charging your devices with mystery cords. Even if NSA says it’s just a joke.

“We go to a lot of conferences like these,” Augustine continued. “Some of our talent comes from conferences like these. I don’t if we’re presenting at this conference, but I do know we are recruiting.”

Everyone’s favorite reluctant assassin is on the run with a $14 million bounty on his head, and few allies, in the action-packed first trailer for John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum.

(Spoilers for first two movies below.)

For those who missed the first two movies in the trilogy, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is a legendary hitman (known as “Baba Yaga”) who tried to retire when he fell in love and got married. Unfortunately, he’s drawn back into the dark underground world by an act of senseless violence after his wife’s death. As Wick mourns Helen’s passing, Iosef Tarasov, the son of a Russian crime syndicate, breaks in, kicks him unconscious, and steals his classic 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. On top of all that, Tarasov kills the little dog, Daisy, that Helen gave to John to comfort him. From there, there’s really no hope for Iosef. Nothing will stop John Wick from seeking retribution.

The first John Wick doubled its original projected box office on opening weekend and went on to grow more than $88 million worldwide for a film that cost around $30 million to make. It received praise for its brisk pace, heart-stopping action sequences, and stylish noir feel. Reeves was perfectly cast in the lead role, and the fictional underground culture of assassins with their gold coins, markers, and almost medieval code of honor set the film apart from more typical entries in this genre.

So naturally, there was a sequel—which was still pretty good but not quite as riveting as its predecessor. John Wick: Chapter Two was set about four days after the events of the first film ended, with Wick exacting revenge and picking up a new pit bull puppy for good measure. In this edition, he wants his Mustang back, and who can blame him? He finds it at a Russian syndicate chop shop and ends up taking out a whole slew of Russian baddies (and badly damaging the car) before declaring a truce.

But there is no rest for a legendary hitman. An Italian crime lord, Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), presents him with a “blood oath” marker Wick gave him in exchange for a favor before he retired. Under the assassin’s code of honor, Wick cannot refuse the request: to kill Santino’s sister, Gianna, so he can take her seat at the crime lord High Table. Santino then double-crosses him by opening a $7 million contract on his life, pretending it’s to avenge his sister (instead of trying to tie up loose ends).

Santino seeks sanctuary in the Continental Hotel, a safe space for assassins with a strict “no killing on the premises” policy. Wick kills Santino in the lounge anyway. And that puts hotel owner Winston (Ian McShane) on the spot. He has to enforce the policy, but he also likes John Wick and knows Santino had it coming. Winston thus gives Wick a one-hour head start before declaring him “excommunicado,” with no access to the hotel’s substantial underground resources. Since there’s also now a $14 million bounty on his head, the odds are heavily stacked against Wick’s survival.

This is where John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum picks up, with a countdown to Winston’s “excommunicado” declaration as Wick scrambles to find allies (and ammo). Based on the trailer, the third film looks likely to recapture the fast-paced, violent glory that made the original John Wick so irresistible. McShane is back as Winston, along with Lance Reddick as Charon, concierge of the Continental. You’ve got Anjelica Huston as The Director of the crime lord High Table—she’s a friend to Wick but unfortunately unable to offer much help since “the High Table wants your life.” Rounding out the cast, Halle Berry plays Sofia, another assassin and close friend of Wick’s, who might just be a potential love interest as well as a helpful ally.

If the film performs as well at the box office as its predecessors, who knows? We might just get a John Wick: Chapter 4. For now, fans of the first two will likely enjoy John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum when it hits theaters on May 17, 2019.

Listing image by YouTube/Lionsgate

Through our research, and backed up by our firsthand testing, we found that a good general use duct tape should be around 11 milli-inches (mil) thick, use a natural rubber-based adhesive, and be made using a co-extrusion process.

Before getting into these specifics, it helps to know a bit about the three ingredients that make up a piece of duct tape: a polyethylene sheet backing, a cloth grid, and a rubber-based adhesive.

The polyethylene sheet plays two roles: It serves as a bonding area for the other two ingredients and creates a waterproof backing. It’s basically a sheet of plastic.

The cloth grid (or scrim)—typically made of polyester or a cotton/polyester blend—decides the tape’s strength, flexibility, and tearability. The threads that run the length of the tape are what give it its material strength—how much weight the tape can hold before breaking. The threads that run across the tape determine its tearability. Duct tape tears along the thread line, so the smaller the space between threads, the cleaner the tear. If the threads are far apart, getting a straight, even tear is difficult. It’s like holding one edge of a piece of paper while trying to rip it down the center.

All true duct tape has a rubber-based adhesive, but each tape has its own adhesive recipe. Some are thicker and flow better in order to stick to rough porous surfaces, while others are stiffer, making them more stable for extreme temperatures and flat surfaces. As we found out in our testing, some adhesives are so gooey that they’ll melt in the hot sun. Some tapes are made with alternatives to rubber-based glues, but those tapes (often made with what’s known as hot melt adhesive) are less reliable in extreme temperatures, and they don’t have the strength of the rubber-based glues, so we dismissed those.

After many conversations with four prominent duct tape manufacturers (and confirmed through our testing), we’re convinced a process called coextrusion is the best way to assemble these three ingredients. The defining characteristic of coextrusion is that the polyethylene sheet enters the manufacturing process in molten form. This means that when the cloth grid is added, it melts directly into the plastic, forming a single, fully bonded piece. The rubber adhesive is then applied to one side, creating what we know as duct tape.

The other way to make duct tape is called lamination. It’s easier to do, but there are issues with the finished product. As Hillary DuMoulin, communications manager at Berry Plastics, explained to us, lamination involves pressing all three ingredients together. The cloth grid is held to the poly either by a separate laminating adhesive or the “squish-through” method, where the rubber-based adhesive holds everything together.

The problem with lamination is the poly/scrim connection is nowhere near as secure as it is with the coextrusion method. Air bubbles can form between the laminated layers. Over time, particularly during exterior use, the poly and scrim can come apart. If you’ve ever pulled off an old piece of duct tape and the cloth grid remained stuck in a crusty bed of adhesive, you’ve seen the major flaw of a laminated tape. With a co-extruded tape, the scrim is really an internal component of the poly, so this kind of separation doesn’t occur.

There are visual ways to distinguish a laminated tape from a co-extruded one. The most telling is that co-extruded tapes have very small, clearly defined dimples on the exterior of the roll. These correspond with gaps in the cloth grid and represent all of the places where potential air bubbles could form if the tape were laminated. It’s harder to see on high-end tapes because as the tape quality increases, the grid gets smaller and dimples become difficult for the eye to pick up.

Another way to visually tell the difference is that laminated tapes (at least the two that we tested) have a wrinkled texture. On one tape, the ridges were so extreme that we were unable to get it to sit flat against any surface for more than a day or so. Co-extruded tapes have a nice smooth finish.

For thickness, we found that tapes around the 11-mil range offered the best compromise between strength and maneuverability. Thickness is measured in “mils” (or milli-inches, roughly .0254 millimeters) and tapes vary from as thin as 3 mils to as thick as 17 mils. Thinner tapes are too floppy to handle. Trying to wrap a thin, flimsy, wet noodle piece of duct tape can become a frustrating experience as it constantly folds over and sticks to itself. Once this happens, especially if it’s adhesive to adhesive, it’s pretty much a permanent bond, so you have to discard the piece and start over.

But thick tapes have their own drawbacks. The beefier they are, the less flexibility and conformity they have. During testing, we found that this negative outweighed the added strength of the really thick tapes, like the 17-mil Gorilla. Those tapes are extremely strong, but it’s very difficult to wrap a piece around a contoured surface (like the floppy sole on an old work boot, or the 90-degree elbow of a copper water pipe). This lack of flexibility also causes problems if you’re bundling something together with the tape. It’s much better if you can give the tape a strong pull and add a little stretch to it as you’re adhering it. This little bit of flexibility, which tapes around 11-mil usually have, can add just enough tension to secure the whole bundle together. This kind of stretching is nearly impossible to do with a thick 17-mil tape.

Other handling characteristics play a role in performance. Berry Plastics’ Hillary DuMoulin, told us that tearability, “finger tack,” and the ability to unwind are all important in evaluating duct tape. So during testing, we took these factors into account as well.

What’s not as important are width and length. The standard roll of duct tape is 2 inches wide (it actually measures around 1.88 inches but is always referred to as 2 inches). Other sizes are available, but even after 10 years in the construction industry, I’ve never needed anything more than a 2-inch roll. The lengths of the rolls are also standardized. The rolls I looked at were a variety of 35, 40, 45, and 60 yards. (45 and 60 yards are the most common lengths.)

Good, high-quality tapes designed for general purpose sit in the $8 to $13 range. You can get cheap and poorly made stuff for less, but it’s not worth saving the couple bucks unless it’s for a really simple and temporary job like sealing garbage bags or wrapping rolls of pulled-up carpeting. You can also get more aggressive tapes loaded with turbo strength and crazy adhesive that can cost over $20, but you probably don’t need that strength and you definitely don’t need the frustration that comes with working with tape that’s too thick and too sticky.

There is a dizzying variety of available duct tapes—Berry Plastics alone sells roughly 35 different types of duct tape under the Nashua and Polyken names—so after our research, we asked the major brands (Intertape, Duck, Scotch, Nashua, and Polyken) to suggest their best product for general all-around use. To give them a sense of what we had in mind, we gave the examples of patching a bike seat, repairing a backpack, and fixing a leak in a hose. Each company came back to us with a tape in the 9-to-11–mil range. In addition, we tested a number of tapes from these manufacturers based on reputation and customer feedback. These were typically thicker tapes and ones that tended to have specific strengths (and, as we discovered, specific weaknesses). We tested a total of 10 tapes.