How should I integrate my directive and scope object in the view? - angularjs

Question

In my controller I have an array of objects. The object is called Well has a few properties, one of which is Location, which stores a string like "A1", "B4", "B13", etc. The location indicates a position on a grid. The letter represents the row, and the number represents the column.
Now that I have this nice list of objects, I would like to display them all on a grid in my view. When I say grid, I mean that loosely. The grid I have come up with is a series of divs, each with an id equal to a location name.
I have created a directive called tile that will display the properties of a single object. The directive looks like so:
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-3" ng-repeat="well in wellArray">
<ul><li ng-repeat="prop in well">{{ prop }}</li></ul>
</div>
</div>
Great! And then I can create a tile in my view for a specific Well in the list of Well objects like so:
<div tile name="{{my.getName()}}" dil="{{my.getDilution()}}"></div>
If this list of objects was ordered by the location property, I could simply turn it into an array of arrays, one array for each row, and then use a double ng-repeat in my view. Unfortunately they are not in order, and I do not want to create a sorting method given the format that the location property is in. If i were to do the double ng-repeat on this list as it is now, I would end up with a grid of tiles that are in no particular order.
Given my limited exposure to javascript, I thought of using jquery's .append() method.(note: i have referenced jquery before angular, so angular.element() will use the jquery library instead of jqlite so I can use jquery selectors) In my view I created a bunch of divs in the following format:
<div id="A1"></div>
<div id="A2"></div>
etc.
And then in my controller I created a method that attempts to append a single Well which has a location of "A1" to the element on the view that has an id="A1". My code looks like so:
angular.element('#A1').append('<div tile name="{{my.getName()}}" dil ="{{my.getDilution()}}"></div>');
I thought it would append the div with the tile directive, to the div with id="A1", however, it does nothing. In fact, there are no errors at all.
Surely my psuedo jquery approach is not the best way to go about this. Not only is it not working (no idea why, maybe because angular needs to compile something somehow), but it's also not a very Angular approach. I keep reading in tutorials and introductions to "not use jquery at all for the first few weeks" and "90% of the things you'll waste lines of code in jquery, can be done suceinctly in Angular". Someone please lend this poor excuse of a programmer a hand!!

Answer 1

Just following your example in comments with .append, instead of iterating over your array and appending elements to a container element, create a conceptual representation of the data, and then use it in the view.
In controller, do something like the following:
$scope.wellData = {};
for (well in wellArray){
var key = wellArray[well].getLocation();
$scope.wellData[key] = well;
}
Then in the view, do ng-repeat over wellData:
<div id="item.getLocation()" ng-repeat="item in wellData">
<div tile name="{{item .getName()}}" dil="{{item .getDilution()}}"></div>
</div>
You definitely should stay away from jQuery in controllers. Just assume that there is no DOM in controllers whenever you get the urge to do anything related to DOM. Controller deals with ViewModels which are conceptual representation of the view, but it is view-independent. Whenever you break that separation, you make your controllers harder to test, and you make your view more difficult to change. And, by going against MVVM principles, you will keep bumping into issues with AngularJS.