AngularJS: How to scale repetitive but slightly-dynamic content - angularjs

I need to implement a browser-like banner warning system so that the user can only access certain features after they've acknowledged certain warnings. The warning messages will depend on data sent from the server and I have to implement different styles and links.
Edit: There could be any number of warnings displayed at the same time. One for each feature. The user must individually acknowledge each warning before the corresponding feature is enabled. Some of the warning texts are static, some are dynamic. Some can have different acknowledge links instead of the standard "okay".
Traditionally, I would package each kind of warning into a class (in the OO sense) and push them to screen through a centralized method, e.g.
displayWarning(new InfoBanner("You must ... before you can modify " + data.name, function onclick() { ... }));
Here the InfoBanner class will have a method that creates the banner elements and attach the event handler.
The Angular way of doing this, on the other hand, seems to be you write the banner entirely in HTML with ng-if and ng-click, etc. E.g.:
<p style="info banner" ng-if="...">You must ... before you can modify {{...}}. <a href ng-click="...">Okay</a></p>
However, this seems quite unfocused and messy because there will now be a large blob of banner code dwarfing the functional part of the page. (There are hundreds of error types defined!)
Is there any way to resolve this without reverting to the fully imperative code?
(Note: a custom directive is probably not the answer as <p style="info banner" is almost like a directive and there's little sharable code among these warnings beyond this.)
(Edit: One can see this question in another way: in the imperative world, the warning-adding logic are scattered in the code but close to the feature they're protecting, so they're easy to understand and maintain. In the declarative world, they must be centralized to the place where they're displayed. I would like a solution where they're declared close to the component they're protecting but displayed centrally.)

What I understand from your question your problem is that since you are in an Angular application you need / should include your banners as markup in your HTML view, since however whether each banner is displayed or not depends on the data you are getting from the server you only know if a specific banner should be displayed in your controller (hence the ng-if you have included in your banner HTML example).
What I would propose in this case would be to create a BannerService which would hold a list of all the banners that should be displayed at any given time. In your controller you can use the functions exposed by the service to add banners to the list when the data you got from the server indicates that you should do so. Each banner in the list would be an object containing all the information that might be different between different banners (ex. banner text, type, etc.) meaning that your HTML view doesn't really need to "know" anything about specific banner details and can just display all the banners available in the BannerService using an ng-repeat.
You can see below a quick-and-dirty example to better understand how this would work.
var app = angular.module('TestApp', [])
app.service('BannerService', [function(){
var banners = [];
this.getBanners = function() {
return banners;
}
this.addBanner = function(banner) {
banners.push(banner);
}
}])
app.controller('TestCtrl', ['BannerService', function(BannerService) {
// Add banners to the banner service depending on your data etc.
BannerService.addBanner({text: "This is a banner", type: "info"});
}])
app.controller('BannerCtrl', ['$scope', 'BannerService', function($scope, BannerService) {
$scope.banners = []
$scope.$watch('BannerService.getBanners', function (newVal, oldVal, scope) {
$scope.banners = BannerService.getBanners();
});
}])
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.23/angular.min.js"></script>
<div ng-app="TestApp">
<div ng-controller="BannerCtrl">
<div ng-repeat="banner in banners"><p class="banner {{banner.type}}">{{banner.text}}</p></div>
</div>
<div ng-controller="TestCtrl">Page content</div>
</div>

 In my opinion what you are looking to implement fits perfectly with Aspect Oriented Programming. If you've never used AOP before be prepared for some light reading. The concept is simple and works very well with Angular's patterns. There is an AngularAOP project, but before you dive into it I suggest running through this article first:
http://www.bennadel.com/blog/2425-decorating-scope-methods-in-the-angularjs-prototype-chain.htm

Related

Switching the data, using the same Controller AngularJS

I was wondering how to change the data, but keep the same controller in my angular app. Basically I will have a list of activities (restaurants, parks etc...) when I click on one of these activities, The view will display all the restaurant, and same thing for the parks. I know how to do that, but I would need to create a park_ctrl and a restaurant_ctrl, and since the data will be formatted the exact same way. I just wanted to know if I could use only one controller and just change the data that it receives when I click on those buttons.
I hope my question makes sense.
logic around retrieving data should be the responsibility of services, so I guess you'd just call a different service in the different cases, from the same controller
I think it's not a really good idea, but opinion based.
You can make a function :
function($scope){
$scope.changePage = function (type) {
if(type==="park"){
$scope.parks = asynLoadFunctionToGetParks();
}else{
if(type === "restaurants"){
/* same as below */
}
}
};
}
And changing the type in your view with :
<button ng-click="changePage('parks')">Parks</button>
<button ng-click="changePage('restaurants')">Restaurants</button>
<div ng-if="type==='park'">
{{parks}}
</div>
<div ng-if="type==='restaurants'">
{{restaurants}}
</div>
I think the issue here is that most of the Angular examples available are of the "hello world" variety and so they show retrieving data directly from the Controller. The problem is that AngularJS out of the box doesn't really have a business logic layer itself, and I think most people who have added such a layer are too busy to be putting up examples.
The way I'd do this is to create a "master" service that can get all of the different data types either up front in the Run block or lazily as the user navigates the app, depending on your needs. Then I'd supply a reference to the applicable sub-collection in the route resolution (resolve property) or the isolate scope in the case of a directive.
Alternatively, the controller can ask for the data by calling masterService.getCollection($scope.collectionName) or something like that, but if you do that you run into the issue that masterService may not yet have that particular collection yet and then you have to clutter up your controller with all the promise resolution stuff as if it were a Controller's responsibility to handle that.
You could avoid that by binding to masterService.collections[$scope.collectionName] in the View, which would leave the Controller only exposing the collection on the $scope or controllerAs variable and the masterService still responsible for retrieving the data and making it available.
Yes you can. Just use different service and a common variable in the scope.
if (something) {
$scope.data = restaurantsService.get();
} else {
$scope.data = parksService.get();
}

Trouble implementing google sso in AngularJS application

So I have been trying to implement google single sign on into my angular application; however, sometimes when I reload the page the button disappear. My angular application is using angular routing. If I were to put my button outside of this it would work as expected. It just runs into problem when its loaded through a partial. Any idea how I can fix this?
<div class="g-signin2" data-onsuccess="onSignIn"></div>
<div ng-view></div>
As #agektmr said, the problem is related to the way angular and platform.js interact with each other.
In order to use the auto rendered button you need to trigger the library when the DOM is loaded.
What I did is calling the following code in the onComplete method (I'm working with AngularMaterial dialogs, but you should be able to find a similar method quite easily):
$timeout(function() {
$window.gapi.signin2.render('g-signin2');
});
The only difference is in your html you should change your div and instead of adding it a g-signin2 class you should add an g-signin2 id:
<div id='g-signin2' data-onsuccess='yourMethod'></div>
If you're willing to learn more about Google's implementation you could take a look here.
I'd recommend using imperative approach for implementing the button for this.
<div id="signin">
<button>sign-in</button>
</div>
<script>
document.querySelector('#signin').addEventListener('click', function() {
var auth2 = gapi.auth2.getAuthInstance();
auth2.signIn();
});
</script>
Find more concrete example here
https://github.com/GoogleChrome/google-sign-in
The code you indicated didn't work because of timing. platform.js library tries to take care of it but fails because it's before angular renders DOM.

AngularJS register controller once

That's what I'm doing. There is application with pages and different controls that may be put on pages by site admin/editor. All pages share one ng-app defined on master page. All controls are supplied with .js files with angular controllers. Let's suppose that I have an image gallery block:
<div ng-controller='imageGalleryCtrl'>
do something amazing here
</div>
<script src='imageGallery.js'></script>
Inside script there is a simple controller registration like:
angular.module('myApp').controller('imageGalleryCtrl', ... );
So. If I have 10 image galleries, I'll execute controller registration 10 times. It looks like this will work, but hell - I don't want it to be so =)
For now I just have all controls' scripts registration on a master page, but I don't like it as well, because if there is no image gallery on a page, I don't want it's script be downloaded during page load.
The question is - is there any proper way to understand if controller have been registered in a module already and thus prevent it from re-registering?
---------------
Well, though I've found no perfect solution, I must admit that the whole idea isn't very good and I won't think about it before my site will grow too big to assemble whole angular app on master page.
You should declare your controller but once. Instead of having one controller per gallery, have your single controller handle all image galleries. The controller should make a request to the REST backend to fetch the images of the desired gallery.
I see that instead of ng-view, you're using the ng-controller directive, indicating that probably you're not using Angular's routing. Try switching to using routes.
Have a look at Angular.js routing tutorial. It shows you how to use the ngRoute module. Then, in the next chapter, the use of $routeParams is described. Via the $routeParams service, you can easily say which gallery should be displayed by providing its ID in the URL; only one controller will be necessary for all your galleries.
If you really must check whether a given controller has been declared, you can iterate through the already declared controllers (and services... and pretty much everything else) by checking the array angular.module("myApp")._invokeQueue. The code would probably look something like this (not tested!):
var isRegistered = function(controllerName)
{
var i, j, queue = angular.module("myApp")._invokeQueue;
for (i = 0, j = queue.length; i < j; ++i) {
if (
queue[i][0] === "$controllerProvider"
&& queue[i][1] === "register"
&& queue[i][2][0] === controllerName
) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
};
Bear in mind however that while this may (or may not) work, it's far from being the correct thing to do. It's touching Angular's internal data that's not meant to be used in your code.

Combining Play! Framework 2.xx with Angular.js

I am having trouble is this marriage of 2 seemingly powerful frameworks. It seems most things that can be done by 1 can be done by 2.How to best utilize the two? Are there any patterns of thinking?
Take a basic example of a CRUD application --
I can write a route mysite/listnames which maps to a controller in play! and this renders a template with the code --
#(names:List[String])
#main("Welcome") {
#for( name <- names ){
<p> Hello, #name </p>
}
Note that main is a typical bootstrapping template.
However now the output this produces seems to be of no use to Angular if say i want to add a input box for filtering these names, or i want to do anything with them at all.
What is a typical way of proceeding?
The base thing seems to be-
1) how to pass on data that arrives after rendering the template by Play to angular for later use at clientside.
2) Is it adviseable at all to use these two frameworks together for a large-level app involving a mathematical object oriented backend + server, and a fairly intensive UI at frontend?
There are many ways you can combine this two frameworks. All depends on how much you want to envolve each of them. For example your Play 2 application may only serve JSON request/respons from the one side(server side) and AngularJS would make all the other stuff from the client side. Considering your example for basic CRUD app :
A Play 2 controller:
def getNames = Action {
val names = List("Bob","Mike","John")
Ok(Json.toJson(names)).as(JSON)
}
Your Play root for it:
GET /getNames controllers.Application.getNames
an AngularJs controller:
app.controller('NamesCtrl', function($scope) {
// get names using AngularJS AJAX API
$http.get('/getNames').success(function(data){
$scope.names = data;
});
});
Our HTML :
<!doctype html>
<html ng-app>
<head>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.10/angular.min.js"> </script>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<ul>
<li ng-repeat=" name in names">{{name}}</li>
</ul>
</div>
</body>
</html>
This way you completely separate the concerns, for your client side, it doesn't matter how the server side is implemented, only thing you need is valid JSON as a response. It's considered to be a good practice.
But of course you can render most of your HTML from Play 2 and use AngularJS for some specific stuff where needed. All depends what conception you choose for your app.
...how to pass on data that arrives after rendering the template by
Play to angular for later use at clientside?
I don't think that it's a good idea, but you surely may do it using ngInit directive like this:
#(message:String)
#main("Welcome") {
<div ng-init="angular_message = #message">
<h1>Hello, {{angular_message}} !</h1>
</div>
}
and you will have angular_message in the scope initialised with #message value from Play 2 template.
Is it adviseable at all to use these two frameworks together for a
large-level app involving a mathematical object oriented backend +
server, and a fairly intensive UI at frontend?
From my point of view, yes, it's two great frameworks and they perfectly work in concert.

Backbone Marionette modules as Widgets similar to Twitter Flight

I'm reading up in choosing the correct client-side framework to segment/modularize my frontend code in Widgets.
Basically what I have/want is:
a complex website with multiple pagetypes, so no single-page application.
all pages are able to render a complete page WITHOUT the use of javascript. IOW: javascript is used as enrichment only.
Lots of pages have a very dynamic way in which widgets can be shown on screen. To overcome complexity at the server-side I've modularized my code into widgets (composite pattern), where each widget is responsible for it's own:
server-side controller code
server-side templating (using hogan/mustache)
routing endpoints, should it need to be called from the client
structural css (css converning the structure of the widget as opposed to the look&feel)
a server-side RegionManager ultimately decides which widgets are rendered and where they are rendered on screen. Endresults is that the RegionManager spits out the entire html (server-generated) as the composite of the rendering of all of it's widgets.
Now, some of these widgets DO have client-side logic and need rerendering on the client. Take a searchpage for instance, which needs to be able to update through ajax. (I've described this process, which uses DRY templating on client and server, here)
What I ultimately want is that, given I already use the composite pattern on the server, to extend this to the client somehow so that a Widget (1 particular logic block on the screen) contains all mentioned server-side code, plus all needed client-side code.
I hope this makes sense.
Would Marionette be suited to be used as a client side framework in this scenario? I'm asking since I'm not 100% sure if the concept of a Marionette Module is what I describe as being a Widget in above scenario. (I'm mentioning Twitter Flight in my question, since I believe this would be a fit, but it currently is so new that I'm hesitant to go with it at the moment_
I think basically what I'm asking is if anybody has some experience doing something along these lines.
I think just using Backbone.js is perfect for this type of application you are describing. You have probably already read this, but most of the backbone literature is focused around your views having associated server generated JSON models and collections, then using the View's render function to generate (on the client) the HTML UI that represents the model/collection.
However it doesn't have to be used this way. In fact there is nothing stopping you attaching views to existing elements that contain content already, which gives you all of the benefits of Backbone's modularity, events system and so on. I often use views that have no model or collection, purely because I like the conformity of style. I have also used an approach like I describe below in the cases where I have had to work with older, existing applications that have not yet got, or never will have a nice REST API, but they do provide content in HTML.
Firstly, lets assume the following HTML represents one of your widgets:
<div id="widget">
<div class="widget-title"></div>
<div class="widget-body">
<!-- assume lots more html is in here -->
Do something!
</div>
</div>
In this case, you could use backbone with a single Widget Model. This would be a very simple model, like this:
App.WidgetModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
intialize: function () {
this.url = this.options.url;
}
});
Take note of the fact the Widget receives a URL as a parameter to its constructor/initialize function. This widget model would represent many of your widgets (and of course you could adopt this general approach with more complicated models and pluck different data from the rendered HTML). So next for your views. As you probably know, normally you pass most views a model or collection when you instantiate them. However in this case, you could create the Widget model in your View's initialize Function and pass it a URL from the pre-rendered HTML as follows:
App.WidgetView = App.View.ComboboxView = Backbone.View.extend({
initialize: function () {
this.model = new App.WidgetModel({}, { url: this.$("a").attr("href") });
}
// rest of the view code
});
So instantiating the view would be something like:
new App.WidgetView({el: $("#widget")})'
By doing all of the above you can do pretty much everything else that backbone offers you and its modular and encapsulated nicely, which is what you are after.
The end result of this whole approach is:
You have rendered the Widget UI as pure HTML which (I assume) is functional without JavaScript.
You attach a View to the existing HTML.
You pass into the View as options, content by extracted (such as a URL) from the rendered HTML with jQuery.
The View is responsible for instantiating the Model passing on the relevant options the model needs (such as a URL).
This means all dynamic server side content is intially contained in the rendered HTML and your View is a modular JavaScript component that can do stuff to it, which I think is the end result you're after.
So you mentioned that you would like to have AJAX functionality for your widgets and that fine with this approach too. Using this approach, you can now use the standard Backbone fetch and save functions on the Widget model to get new content. In this example it is from the URL retrieved from the rendered HTML. When you get the response, you can use the view's, render function, or other finer grained functions to update the HTML on the page as required.
A few points:
The only thing to look out for is that you'll need to change the content type of the fetch and save functions to "text/html" if that's what the server is providing. For example:
this.model.fetch({
type: "POST",
contentType: "text/html"
});
Lastly, the model I have proposed is instantiated with no content. However if your ajax calls are a content type of "text/html", you may need to play around with you model so it can store this content in its attributes collection properly. See this answer for more information.

Resources