When adding filters to models you usually use the $filters property

    protected array $filters = [
        CreatedAfterFilter::class,
    ];

With this solution you are not able to set properties of the filter. But sometimes you need multiple almost identical filters, or you just want to use different headlines for the same filter when using it in different models. It would be kind of waste to create multiple filter classes for that.

As an alternative you can just override the filters() method of the HasFilters trait.

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use App\Models\Filters\CreatedAfterFilter;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Illuminate\Support\Collection;
use Lacodix\LaravelModelFilter\Traits\HasFilters;

class Post extends Model
{
    use HasFilters;

    public function filters(): Collection
    {
        return collect([
            new CreatedAfterFilter()
        });
    }
}

The filters method returns a collection of filter instances. With that solution you can instanciate the filter and use methods on it. For convenience there are already some methods available on all filter classes.

    public function filters(): Collection
    {
        return collect([
            (new CreatedAfterFilter())
                ->setQueryName('my_query_string')
                ->setMode(FilterMode::LOWER)
                ->setValidationMode(ValidationMode::THROW)
                ->setTitle(__('My Headline'))
                ->setComponent('date'),
        });
    }

All this methods should be self explaining. In your own filter classes you can create more methods like this and you just need to return $this.

#Use Base Filters Immediate

With this option you can just use some available base filters without creating your own classes. For the date, string and boolean-filter you don't need to create dedicated filter classes.

Filter classes have a huge benefit if you can reuse it like an reusable created_at filter, it is only created once and can be applied to multiple models.

    public function filters(): Collection
    {
        return collect([
            (new DateFilter('created_at'))
                ->setTitle('Created between')
                ->setQueryName('created_at_between')
                ->setMode(FilterMode::BETWEEN),

            (new StringFilter('title'))
                ->setTitle('Title')
                ->setQueryName('title_starts_with')
                ->setMode(FilterMode::STARTS_WITH),

            (new NumericFilter('counter'))
                ->setTitle('Count max')
                ->setQueryName('counter_lower_filter')
                ->setMode(FilterMode::LOWER_OR_EQUAL),
        });
    }

To apply this filters the keys are equal to the query names.

Post::filter([
    'created_at_between' => ['2023-01-01', '2023-01-31'],
    'title_starts_with' => 'test',
    'counter_lower_filter' => 500,
])->get();

or open the url

https://.../posts?created_at_between[]=2023-01-01&created_at_between[]=2023-01-31&title_starts_with=test&counter_lower_filter=500