WP Rest API Get Featured Image - angularjs

Question

I am building a relatively simply blog page that uses the WP Rest Api and AngularJs to show the data on the front-end.
On my home page I want to return the title, followed by the featured image, followed by the excerpt. I have pulled the title and excerpt in fine it seems that in the JSON the featured image is a media Id. What is the best way to pull this data in on the fly?
I have seen various things around the internet that use PHP functions but I think the best way to do it is within a angular controller, just looking for some advice on exactly what the controller would be
List View HTML
<ng-include src=" dir + '/form.html?v=2' "></ng-include>
<div class="row">
<div class="col-sm-8 col-lg-10 col-lg-push-1 post">
<div class="row-fluid">
<div class="col-sm-12">
<article ng-repeat="post in posts" class="projects">
<a class="title" href="#/post/{{post.slug}}"><h2>{{post.title.rendered}}</h2></a>
<p ng-bind-html="post.excerpt.rendered | to_trusted"></p>
</article>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Controller
.controller('listPage',['$scope','Posts', function($scope,Posts){
$scope.refreshPosts = function(){
Posts.query(function(res){
$scope.posts = res;
});
};
$scope.refreshPosts();
// CLEARFORMFUNCTION
$scope.clear = function(){
$scope.$root.openPost = false;
jQuery('#save').modal('hide');
};
// SAVEMODALOPEN/COSE
$scope.openSaveModal = function(){
jQuery('#save').modal('show');
}
$scope.closeSaveModal = function(){
jQuery('#save').modal('hide');
}
// DATEFUNCTION
$scope.datify = function(date){
$scope.date = newDate(date);
return $scope.date.getDate()+'/'+$scope.date.getMonth()+'/'+$scope.date.getYear();
};
}])

Answer 1

You could also modify the JSON response with PHP. This returns just what I need and is very fast (Using _embed is very slow in my experience)
I have the following code in a plugin (used for adding custom post types), but I imagine you could put it in your theme's function.php file.
php
add_action( 'rest_api_init', 'add_thumbnail_to_JSON' );
function add_thumbnail_to_JSON() {
//Add featured image
register_rest_field( 'post',
'featured_image_src', //NAME OF THE NEW FIELD TO BE ADDED - you can call this anything
array(
'get_callback' => 'get_image_src',
'update_callback' => null,
'schema' => null,
)
);
}
function get_image_src( $object, $field_name, $request ) {
$size = 'thumbnail'; // Change this to the size you want | 'medium' / 'large'
$feat_img_array = wp_get_attachment_image_src($object['featured_media'], $size, true);
return $feat_img_array[0];
}
Now in your JSON response you should see a new field called "featured_image_src": containing a url to the thumbnail.
Read more about modifying responses here:
http://v2.wp-api.org/extending/modifying/
And here's more information on the wp_get_attachment_image_src() function
https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_get_attachment_image_src/
**Note: Don't forget <?php ?> tags if this is a new php file!

Answer 2

Turns out, in my case, there is a new plugin available that solves this without having to make a secondary request. See my recent Q:
WP Rest API + AngularJS : How to grab Featured Image for display on page?

Answer 3

If you send the ?_embed param to the query, it will return more information in the response, like images, categories, and author data.
const result = await axios.get(`/wp-json/wp/v2/my-post-type?_embed`);
// Featured Image
result.data._embedded['wp:featuredmedia'][0].source_url;
// Thumbnail
result.data._embedded['wp:featuredmedia'][0]['media_details']['sizes']['medium']['source_url']