Livewire needs pdf as a string not base64

[colinmackinlay]

I have been using browsershot in livewire with streamDownload:

return response()->streamDownload(function () use ($data) {
            echo $this->browsershot('myview', $data);
        }, $title));

and the browsershot() function in my PrintsToPdf trait looks like this:

    protected function browsershot(string $view, array $data, bool $landscape = true, string $size = 'A4'): string
    {
        $html = view($view, $data)->render();

        $footerHtml = view('components.pdf.footer')->render();

        $browsershot = Browsershot::html($html)
            ->margins(10, 10, 10, 10)
            ->format($size)
            ->showBrowserHeaderAndFooter()
            ->footerHtml($footerHtml)
            ->hideHeader()
            ->showBackground();

        return $browsershot->landscape($landscape)->pdf();
    }

streamDownload() needs to receive a string not an already base64 encoded one.

I want to switch to laravel-pdf ao that I can test the contents of the file. That means my browsershot function now needs to be this:

    protected function browsershot(string $view, array $data, bool $landscape = true, string $size = 'A4'): string
    {
        $html = view($view, $data)->render();

        $footerHtml = view('components.pdf.footer')->render();

        return base64_decode(Pdf::view($view, $data)
            ->margins(10, 10, 10, 10)
            ->footerView('components.pdf.footer')
            ->orientation($landscape?Orientation::Landscape:Orientation::Portrait)
            ->format($size)
            ->name($this->browsershotTitle($data['title']))->base64());
    }

There is an unnecessary overhead of laravel-pdf returning a base64 encoded string that I have to decode!

Unfortunately the getBrowsershot() methodin PdfBuilder` is protected. If it was public I could just call it direct.

Is there another way to get an unencoded string output for Livewire. Alternatively, could the getBrowsershot() method be made public or could there be a getter for it e.g. toString()?