Current message pagination approach is not well-suited to a realtime chat application

[ndavidson7]

Currently, retrieving messages from a conversation uses offset-based pagination:

chat/src/Models/Conversation.php

Lines 310 to 343 in 8f03df6

	/**
	* Get messages in conversation for the specific participant.
	*
	* @param Model $participant
	* @param $paginationParams
	* @param $deleted
	*
	* @return LengthAwarePaginator|HasMany|Builder
	*/
	private function getConversationMessages(Model $participant, $paginationParams, $deleted)
	{
	$messages = $this->messages()
	->join($this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications', $this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.message_id', '=', $this->tablePrefix.'messages.id')
	->where($this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.messageable_type', $participant->getMorphClass())
	->where($this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.messageable_id', $participant->getKey());
	$messages = $deleted ? $messages->whereNotNull($this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.deleted_at') : $messages->whereNull($this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.deleted_at');
	$messages = $messages->orderBy($this->tablePrefix.'messages.id', $paginationParams['sorting'])
	->paginate(
	$paginationParams['perPage'],
	[
	$this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.updated_at as read_at',
	$this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.deleted_at as deleted_at',
	$this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.messageable_id',
	$this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.id as notification_id',
	$this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.is_seen',
	$this->tablePrefix.'message_notifications.is_sender',
	$this->tablePrefix.'messages.*',
	],
	$paginationParams['pageName'],
	$paginationParams['page']
	);
	return $messages;
	}

However, this is not the appropriate method for a realtime chat application. If a message is sent between the time that a user loads the first and second pages of messages, the offset will point to one of the previously retrieved messages. This is exactly the problem that cursor-based pagination aims to solve, not to mention better performance.

I believe the solution is as simple as changing

chat/src/Models/Conversation.php

Line 327 in 8f03df6

->paginate(

to ->cursorPaginate( and removing redundant pagination parameters.