Cascader

A cascading dropdown component for Laravel Livewire with Alpine.js. Inspired by Ant Design's Cascader component.

On desktop it renders as a two-column dropdown with search; on mobile (< 640px) it becomes a bottom sheet with step-by-step navigation. Light and dark mode are both supported out of the box.

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+ (Laravel 13 requires PHP 8.3+)
• Laravel 11, 12 or 13
• Livewire 3 or 4
• Alpine.js 3
• Tailwind CSS
• An icon source if you use icons (FontAwesome by default — see Icon Resolver)

Installation

composer require vlados/cascader

Register the Alpine component (required)

The Blade component renders x-data="cascader(...)", so the Alpine component must be registered before Alpine starts. Publish the script and import it in your bundle:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=cascader-scripts

// resources/js/app.js — before Alpine.start()
import { cascader } from './vendor/cascader/cascader';

document.addEventListener('alpine:init', () => {
    Alpine.data('cascader', cascader);
});

The script also registers itself automatically when it is loaded on a page where Alpine is available globally (before alpine:init fires), so with a plain <script> setup no extra code is needed.

Tailwind

The published views use Tailwind classes. Make sure your Tailwind content configuration covers the package views (or the published copies):

content: [
    // ...
    './vendor/vlados/cascader/src/resources/views/**/*.blade.php',
],

Usage

Basic usage

<x-cascader
    :options="$categories"
    wire:model="category_id"
    placeholder="Select category"
/>

Use wire:model.live (with any modifiers, e.g. wire:model.live.debounce.500ms) for live updates. The deprecated wire-model="category_id" prop from older versions still works but will be removed in a future release — prefer the standard wire:model attribute.

If the bound property already has a value on page load, the component derives the displayed label from the options automatically. You can override it with selected-text:

<x-cascader
    :options="$categories"
    wire:model="category_id"
    selected-text="Electronics / Phones"
/>

Options format

The options array is two levels deep — parents with an optional children array. A parent with children is a navigation node and cannot be selected itself; a parent with no children is selectable directly.

$categories = [
    [
        'id' => 1,
        'name' => 'Electronics',
        'icon' => 'laptop',      // optional, see Icon Resolver
        'color' => '#3B82F6',    // optional icon color / background tint
        'children' => [
            ['id' => 11, 'name' => 'Phones', 'icon' => 'mobile', 'color' => '#3B82F6'],
            ['id' => 12, 'name' => 'Tablets', 'icon' => 'tablet', 'color' => '#3B82F6'],
        ],
    ],
    [
        'id' => 3,
        'name' => 'Other',  // no children — selectable directly
        'icon' => 'question',
        'color' => '#6B7280',
        'children' => [],
    ],
];

Values must be unique across the whole tree — parents and children share one value space. If a parent and a child both had id: 5, selection highlighting could not tell them apart.

Custom value and label fields

By default the component reads id for values and name for labels:

<x-cascader
    :options="$items"
    wire:model="selected_slug"
    value-field="slug"
    label-field="title"
/>

Clearable selection

<x-cascader :options="$categories" wire:model="category_id" :clearable="true" />

Sizes

Two sizes are available, matching Flux UI's select: sm (default) and xs:

<x-cascader :options="$categories" wire:model="category_id" size="xs" />

Search

The desktop dropdown includes a search box. Results are leaf-only: a query matching a parent lists its children as "Parent / Child" paths, and leaf parents appear directly. Escape clears the search first; pressing Escape again closes the dropdown.

Mobile customization

On screens narrower than 640px the cascader opens as a bottom sheet with Cancel/Confirm buttons:

<x-cascader
    :options="$categories"
    wire:model="category_id"
    cancel-text="Cancel"
    confirm-text="Done"
    search-placeholder="Search..."
/>

All props

Icon Resolver

Icons are resolved server-side to HTML through a configurable resolver. The default renders FontAwesome <i> tags. Configure a different resolver in AppServiceProvider::boot().

Icon names are validated (letters, numbers, dots, dashes, underscores) and colors are sanitized before rendering — invalid values are rejected or ignored rather than interpolated into markup.

FontAwesome inline tags (default)

use Vlados\Cascader\IconResolver;

IconResolver::useFontAwesome();          // fa-solid (default)
IconResolver::useFontAwesome('regular'); // fa-regular

Options use plain icon names: ['icon' => 'laptop'] → <i class="fa-solid fa-laptop">. Requires FontAwesome CSS on the page.

Blade FontAwesome components

For projects using blade-fontawesome:

IconResolver::useBladeFontAwesome();      // fas (default)
IconResolver::useBladeFontAwesome('far'); // regular

['icon' => 'laptop'] → <x-fas-laptop />

Heroicons

IconResolver::useHeroicons();          // solid
IconResolver::useHeroicons('outline'); // outline

['icon' => 'home'] → <x-heroicon-s-home />

Blade Icons (any set)

IconResolver::useBladeIcons();

Pass full component names: ['icon' => 'heroicon-o-home'] → <x-heroicon-o-home />

Custom resolver

IconResolver::using(function (string $icon, ?string $color = null, string $size = 'sm') {
    return view('components.my-icon', [
        'name' => $icon,
        'color' => $color,
        'size' => $size,
    ])->render();
});

The returned HTML is injected with x-html, so a custom resolver must escape any untrusted data itself.

Error handling

If an icon component cannot be rendered, a descriptive InvalidArgumentException is thrown:

Cascader: Unable to render icon component '<x-fas-missing />'.
Original icon name: 'missing'.
Make sure the icon exists or configure a different IconResolver.

Using the Alpine component directly

If you want your own markup, use the Alpine component without the Blade wrapper:

<div
    x-data="cascader({
        options: {{ Js::from($categories) }},
        modelValue: $wire.entangle('category_id'),
        initialText: {{ Js::from($selectedText) }},
        valueField: 'id',
        labelField: 'name'
    })"
>
    <!-- Your custom template -->
</div>

selectedValue is accepted as a deprecated alias for modelValue.

Publishing assets

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=cascader-views    # Blade views
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=cascader-scripts  # Alpine component

License

MIT