Set a form input to dirty in angularjs? - angularjs

Question

I have a form that I auto input the current date into an input field. I want to set the input field to dirty because when it tries to sync with firebase, that input field is not included unless you interact with it.
I have tried the following in many different forms...and I am at a loss.
var now = new Date();
$scope.load = function () {
if (!$rootScope.auth) {
$location.path('/a/');
} else {
$scope.logs = Logs.list($scope);
$scope.newDate = now;
$scope.logForm.$setDirty(true);
}
};
<form name="logForm" novalidate class="css-form">
<div class="form-group input-group">
<input class="form-control" name="action" placeholder="Action" type="text" value="{{newAction}}" ng-model="newAction" required />
<div class="input-group-addon">
<i class="fa fa-rocket"></i>
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group input-group">
<input class="form-control" name="quantity" placeholder="Quantity" type="number" value="{{newQuantity}}" ng-model="newQuantity" ng-pattern="/^[0-9]*$/" />
<div class="input-group-addon">
<i class="fa fa-plus-square"></i>
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group input-group">
<input class="form-control" name="location" placeholder="Location" type="text" value="{{newLocation}}" ng-model="newLocation" />
<div class="input-group-addon">
<i class="fa fa-map-marker"></i>
</div>
</div>
<div class="form-group input-group">
<input class="form-control" name="date" placeholder="Date" type="datetime" value="{{newDate}}" ng-model="newDate" />
<div class="input-group-addon">
<i class="fa fa-calendar"></i>
</div>
</div>
<button class="btn btn-info btn-block" ng-click="create()">Add log</button>
</form>

Answer 1

The form tag creates its own scope, so to have a reliable scope structure, we shouldn't use primitives for the ng-model values.
To ensure, that we have access to the form controller, we have to delay the form initialization into the next digest cycle. This is achieved with the use of the $timeout service.
http://jsbin.com/OvIvIHO/3/
jsbin contains the updated version