Angularjs + kendoui dropdownlist - angularjs

I have this directive
angular.module('xxx', [
])
.directive('qnDropdown', [
'$parse',
function($parse) {
return {
restrict: 'A',
require: 'ngModel',
link: function(scope, elem, attr, ngModel) {
scope.$watch(attr.qnDropdown, function(source) {
var model = $parse(attr.ngModel);
elem.kendoDropDownList({
dataTextField: "Name",
dataValueField: "ID",
value: attr.value,
select: function(e) {
var item = this.dataItem(e.item.index());
scope.$apply(function() {
model.assign(scope, item.value);
});
},
//template: '<strong>${ data.Name }</strong><p>${ data.ID }</p>',
dataSource: source
});
});
}
};
}]);
Input field is
<input qn:dropdown="locations" ng:model="installation.LocationID" value="{{installation.LocationID}}" />
EVerything works fine but initial value for kendoDropDownList is not filled (value: attr.value).
I suppose I am doing something at wrong place or time but not sure what?

You probably need to use $observe:
Use $observe to observe the value changes of attributes that contain interpolation (e.g. src="{{bar}}"). Not only is this very efficient but it's also the only way to easily get the actual value because during the linking phase the interpolation hasn't been evaluated yet and so the value is at this time set to undefined. -- docs, see section Attributes.
Here's an example where I used $observe recently. See also #asgoth's answer there, where he uses $watch, but he also created an isolate scope.
I'm still not clear on when we need to use $observe vs when we can use $watch.

Are you sure {{installation.LocationID}} has a value you expect? I was able to copy-paste your code with some tweaks for my situation and the dropdownlist is working wonderfully (thank you for doing the hard work for me!). I'm populating value on the input field and when the directive executes, attr.value has it and Kendo shows it as expected. Perhaps this was an Angular issue a couple versions ago?

I had the same problem, the attr.value was empty. The problem was related to an $http async call being made to get the data. The scope data was not yet populated when the dropdownlist was being defined in the directive.
I fixed this by watching attr.ngModel instead of attr.qnDropdown in the link function of the directive. This way the dropdownlist gets defined when the scope data is populated.

Related

Passing a model to a custom directive - clearing a text input

What I'm trying to achieve is relatively simple, but I've been going round in circles with this for too long, and now it's time to seek help.
Basically, I have created a directive that is comprised of a text input and a link to clear it.
I pass in the id via an attribute which works in fine, but I cannot seem to work out how to pass the model in to clear it when the reset link is clicked.
Here is what I have so far:
In my view:
<text-input-with-reset input-id="the-relevant-id" input-model="the.relevant.model"/>
My directive:
app.directive('textInputWithReset', function() {
return {
restrict: 'AE',
replace: 'true',
template: '<div class="text-input-with-reset">' +
'<input ng-model="inputModel" id="input-id" type="text" class="form-control">' +
'<a href class="btn-reset"><span aria-hidden="true">×</span></a>' +
'</div>',
link: function(scope, elem, attrs) {
// set ID of input for clickable labels (works)
elem.find('input').attr('id', attrs.inputId);
// Reset model and clear text field (not working)
elem.find('a').bind('click', function() {
scope[attrs.inputModel] = '';
});
}
};
});
I'm obviously missing something fundamental - any help would be greatly appreciated.
You should call scope.$apply() after resetting inputModel in your function where you reset the value.
elem.find('a').bind('click', function() {
scope.inputModel = '';
scope.$apply();
});
Please, read about scope in AngularJS here.
$apply() is used to execute an expression in angular from outside of the angular framework. (For example from browser DOM events, setTimeout, XHR or third party libraries). Because we are calling into the angular framework we need to perform proper scope life cycle of exception handling, executing watches.
I've also added declaring of your inputModel attribute in scope of your directive.
scope: {
inputModel: "="
}
See demo on plunker.
But if you can use ng-click in your template - use it, it's much better.
OK, I seem to have fixed it by making use of the directive scope and using ng-click in the template:
My view:
<text-input-with-reset input-id="the-relevant-id" input-model="the.relevant.model"/>
My directive:
app.directive('textInputWithReset', function() {
return {
restrict: 'AE',
replace: 'true',
scope: {
inputModel: '='
},
template: '<div class="text-input-with-reset">' +
'<input ng-model="inputModel" id="input-id" type="text" class="form-control">' +
'<a href ng-click="inputModel = \'\'" class="btn-reset"><span aria-hidden="true">×</span></a>' +
'</div>',
link: function(scope, elem, attrs) {
elem.find('input').attr('id', attrs.inputId);
};
});
It looks like you've already answered your question, but I'll leave my answer here for further explanations in case someone else lands on the same problem.
In its current state, there are two things wrong with your directive:
The click handler will trigger outside of Angular's digest cycle. Basically, even if you manage to clear the model's value, Angular won't know about it. You can wrap your logic in a scope.$apply() call to fix this, but it's not the correct solution in this case - keep reading.
Accessing the scope via scope[attrs.inputModel] would evaluate to something like scope['the.relevant.model']. Obviously, the name of your model is not literally the.relevant.model, as the dots typically imply nesting instead of being a literal part of the name. You need a different way of referencing the model.
You should use an isolate scope (see here and here) for a directive like this. Basically, you'd modify your directive to look like this:
app.directive('textInputWithReset', function() {
return {
restrict: 'AE',
replace: 'true',
template: [...],
// define an isolate scope for the directive, passing in these scope variables
scope: {
// scope.inputId = input-id attribute on directive
inputId: '=inputId',
// scope.inputModel = input-model attribute on directive
inputModel: '=inputModel'
},
link: function(scope, elem, attrs) {
// set ID of input for clickable labels (works)
elem.find('input').attr('id', scope.inputId);
// Reset model and clear text field (not working)
elem.find('a').bind('click', function() {
scope.inputModel = '';
});
}
};
});
Notice that when you define an isolate scope, the directive gets its own scope with the requested variables. This means that you can simply use scope.inputId and scope.inputModel within the directive, instead of trying to reference them in a roundabout way.
This is untested, but it should pretty much work (you'll need to use the scope.$apply() fix I mentioned before). You might want to test the inputId binding, as you might need to pass it a literal string now (e.g. put 'input-id' in the attribute to specify that it is a literal string, instead of input-id which would imply there is an input-id variable in the scope).
After you get your directive to work, let's try to make it work even more in "the Angular way." Now that you have an isolate scope in your directive, there is no need to implement custom logic in the link function. Whenever your link function has a .click() or a .attr(), there is probably a better way of writing it.
In this case, you can simplify your directive by using more built-in Angular logic instead of manually modifying the DOM in the link() function:
<div class="text-input-with-reset">
<input ng-model="inputModel" id="{{ inputId }}" type="text" class="form-control">
<span aria-hidden="true">×</span>
</div>
Now, all your link() function (or, better yet, your directive's controller) needs to do is define a reset() function on the scope. Everything else will automatically just work!

ngModel and How it is Used

I am just getting started with angular and ran into the directive below. I read a few tutorials already and am reading some now, but I really don't understand what "require: ngModel" does, mainly because I have no idea what ngModel does overall. Now, if I am not insane, it's the same directive that provides two way binding (the whole $scope.blah = "blah blah" inside ctrl, and then {{blah}} to show 'blah blah' inside an html element controlled by directive.
That doesn't help me here. Furthermore, I don't understand what "model: '#ngModel' does. #ngModel implies a variable on the parents scope, but ngModel isn't a variable there.
tl;dr:
What does "require: ngModel" do?
What does "model : '#ngModel'" do?
*auth is a service that passes profile's dateFormat property (irrelevant to q)
Thanks in advance for any help.
angular.module('app').directive('directiveDate', function($filter, auth) {
return {
require: 'ngModel',
scope: {
model : '#ngModel',
search: '=?search'
},
restrict: 'E',
replace: true,
template: '<span>{{ search }}</span>',
link: function($scope) {
$scope.set = function () {
$scope.text = $filter('date')($scope.model, auth.profile.dateFormat );
$scope.search = $scope.text;
};
$scope.$watch( function(){ return $scope.model; }, function () {
$scope.set();
}, true );
//update if locale changes
$scope.$on('$localeChangeSuccess', function () {
$scope.set();
});
}
};
});
ngModel is an Angular directive responsible for data-binding. Through its controller, ngModelController, it's possible to create directives that render and/or update the model.
Take a look at the following code. It's a very simple numeric up and down control. Its job is to render the model and update it when the user clicks on the + and - buttons.
app.directive('numberInput', function() {
return {
require: 'ngModel',
restrict: 'E',
template: '<span></span><button>+</button><button>-</button>',
link: function(scope, element, attrs, ngModelCtrl) {
var span = element.find('span'),
plusButton = element.find('button').eq(0),
minusButton = element.find('button').eq(1);
ngModelCtrl.$render = function(value) {
updateValue();
};
plusButton.on('click', function() {
ngModelCtrl.$setViewValue(ngModelCtrl.$modelValue + 1);
updateValue();
});
minusButton.on('click', function() {
ngModelCtrl.$setViewValue(ngModelCtrl.$modelValue - 1);
updateValue();
});
function updateValue(value) {
span.html(ngModelCtrl.$modelValue);
}
}
};
});
Working Plunker
Since it interacts with the model, we can use ngModelController. To do that, we use the require option to tell Angular we want it to inject that controller into the link function as its fourth argument. Now, ngModelController has a vast API and I won't get into much detail here. All we need for this example are two methods, $render and $setViewValue, and one property, $modelValue.
$render and $setViewValue are two ways of the same road. $render is called by Angular every time the model changes elsewhere so the directive can (re)render it, and $setViewValue should be called by the directive every time the user does something that should change the model's value. And $modelValue is the current value of the model. The rest of the code is pretty much self-explanatory.
Finally, ngModelController has an arguably shortcoming: it doesn't work well with "reference" types (arrays, objects, etc). So if you have a directive that binds to, say, an array, and that array later changes (for instance, an item is added), Angular won't call $render and the directive won't know it should update the model representation. The same is true if your directive adds/removes an item to/from the array and call $setViewValue: Angular won't update the model because it'll think nothing has changed (although the array's content has changed, its reference remains the same).
This should get you started. I suggest that you read the ngModelController documentation and the official guide on directives so you can understand better how this all works.
P.S: The directive you have posted above isn't using ngModelController at all, so the require: 'ngModel' line is useless. It's simply accessing the ng-model attribute to get its value.

How to implement an ng-change for a custom directive

I have a directive with a template like
<div>
<div ng-repeat="item in items" ng-click="updateModel(item)">
<div>
My directive is declared as:
return {
templateUrl: '...',
restrict: 'E',
require: '^ngModel',
scope: {
items: '=',
ngModel: '=',
ngChange: '&'
},
link: function postLink(scope, element, attrs)
{
scope.updateModel = function(item)
{
scope.ngModel = item;
scope.ngChange();
}
}
}
I would like to have ng-change called when an item is clicked and the value of foo has been changed already.
That is, if my directive is implemented as:
<my-directive items=items ng-model="foo" ng-change="bar(foo)"></my-directive>
I would expect to call bar when the value of foo has been updated.
With code given above, ngChange is successfully called, but it is called with the old value of foo instead of the new updated value.
One way to solve the problem is to call ngChange inside a timeout to execute it at some point in the future, when the value of foo has been already changed. But this solution make me loose control over the order in which things are supposed to be executed and I assume that there should be a more elegant solution.
I could also use a watcher over foo in the parent scope, but this solution doesn't really give an ngChange method to be implmented and I have been told that watchers are great memory consumers.
Is there a way to make ngChange be executed synchronously without a timeout or a watcher?
Example: http://plnkr.co/edit/8H6QDO8OYiOyOx8efhyJ?p=preview
If you require ngModel you can just call $setViewValue on the ngModelController, which implicitly evaluates ng-change. The fourth parameter to the linking function should be the ngModelCtrl. The following code will make ng-change work for your directive.
link : function(scope, element, attrs, ngModelCtrl){
scope.updateModel = function(item) {
ngModelCtrl.$setViewValue(item);
}
}
In order for your solution to work, please remove ngChange and ngModel from isolate scope of myDirective.
Here's a plunk: http://plnkr.co/edit/UefUzOo88MwOMkpgeX07?p=preview
tl;dr
In my experience you just need to inherit from the ngModelCtrl. the ng-change expression will be automatically evaluated when you use the method ngModelCtrl.$setViewValue
angular.module("myApp").directive("myDirective", function(){
return {
require:"^ngModel", // this is important,
scope:{
... // put the variables you need here but DO NOT have a variable named ngModel or ngChange
},
link: function(scope, elt, attrs, ctrl){ // ctrl here is the ngModelCtrl
scope.setValue = function(value){
ctrl.$setViewValue(value); // this line will automatically eval your ng-change
};
}
};
});
More precisely
ng-change is evaluated during the ngModelCtrl.$commitViewValue() IF the object reference of your ngModel has changed. the method $commitViewValue() is called automatically by $setViewValue(value, trigger) if you do not use the trigger argument or have not precised any ngModelOptions.
I specified that the ng-change would be automatically triggered if the reference of the $viewValue changed. When your ngModel is a string or an int, you don't have to worry about it. If your ngModel is an object and your just changing some of its properties, then $setViewValue will not eval ngChange.
If we take the code example from the start of the post
scope.setValue = function(value){
ctrl.$setViewValue(value); // this line will automatically evalyour ng-change
};
scope.updateValue = function(prop1Value){
var vv = ctrl.$viewValue;
vv.prop1 = prop1Value;
ctrl.$setViewValue(vv); // this line won't eval the ng-change expression
};
After some research, it seems that the best approach is to use $timeout(callback, 0).
It automatically launches a $digest cycle just after the callback is executed.
So, in my case, the solution was to use
$timeout(scope.ngChange, 0);
This way, it doesn't matter what is the signature of your callback, it will be executed just as you defined it in the parent scope.
Here is the plunkr with such changes: http://plnkr.co/edit/9MGptJpSQslk8g8tD2bZ?p=preview
Samuli Ulmanen and lucienBertin's answers nail it, although a bit of further reading in the AngularJS documentation provides further advise on how to handle this (see https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/type/ngModel.NgModelController).
Specifically in the cases where you are passing objects to $setViewValue(myObj). AngularJS Documentatation states:
When used with standard inputs, the view value will always be a string (which is in some cases parsed into another type, such as a Date object for input[date].) However, custom controls might also pass objects to this method. In this case, we should make a copy of the object before passing it to $setViewValue. This is because ngModel does not perform a deep watch of objects, it only looks for a change of identity. If you only change the property of the object then ngModel will not realize that the object has changed and will not invoke the $parsers and $validators pipelines. For this reason, you should not change properties of the copy once it has been passed to $setViewValue. Otherwise you may cause the model value on the scope to change incorrectly.
For my specific case, my model is a moment date object, so I must clone the object first before then calling setViewValue. I am lucky here as moment provides a simple clone method: var b = moment(a);
link : function(scope, elements, attrs, ctrl) {
scope.updateModel = function (value) {
if (ctrl.$viewValue == value) {
var copyOfObject = moment(value);
ctrl.$setViewValue(copyOfObject);
}
else
{
ctrl.$setViewValue(value);
}
};
}
The fundamental issue here is that the underlying model does not get updated until the digest cycle that happens after scope.updateModel has finished executing. If the ngChange function requires details of the update that is being made then those details can be made available explicitly to ngChange, rather than relying on the model updating having been previously applied.
This can be done by providing a map of local variable names to values when calling ngChange. In this scenario, you can mapping the new value of the model to a name which can be referenced in the ng-change expression.
For example:
scope.updateModel = function(item)
{
scope.ngModel = item;
scope.ngChange({newValue: item});
}
In the HTML:
<my-directive ng-model="foo" items=items ng-change="bar(newValue)"></my-directive>
See: http://plnkr.co/edit/4CQBEV1S2wFFwKWbWec3?p=preview

What's the generalizable way to get values out of a directive?

I'm writing a little threaded discussion board in angular. I want to use hallo.js for my inline editor (or something similar, the problem doesn't actually depend on hallo).
Here's the relevant snippet from the template
<div ng-show="post.editing" ng-bind-html="post.body" edit-hallo class="col-xs-8"></div>
<div ng-show="!post.editing" ng-bind-html="post.body" class="col-xs-8"></div>
Here's my directive:
Appl.directive('editHallo', function () {
return {
restrict: 'AC',
scope: true,
link: function(scope, element, attr) {
element
.hallo({
plugins: {
'halloformat': {"bold": true, "italic": true, "strikethrough": true, "underline": true},
'halloheadings': [1,2,3],
'hallojustify' : {},
}
});
element.bind('hallomodified', function(event, data) {
scope.post.body = data.content;
});
}
};
});
This all works just fine, but the hack is right there at the end - when there's a hallomodified event, I manually say, scope.post.body = data.content which not only feels like a hack, it means this only works when there's a post.body item that I'm editing, and therefore doesn't work well if I want to repurpose this for the profile editor or whatever.
So my question is: how should I refactor this so that the relevant two-way binding works? I tried a few things that seemed obvious, such as putting a app-model="post.body" in the div, and then doing an isolate scope with =, but that wasn't getting me anywhere. Ideally, I'd pass in the appropriate model using an ng-model directive, but that seems to have changed sometime between when all the directive examples I found online were created and angular 1.2.0.
There's been some time I don't use AngularJS.
But I think the best way would be to change the scope to something like:
scope:{ngModel:'='}
or
scope:{attribute:'='}
That way it should make a two data binding. One with ng-model on first case, or attribute on second.
Then you can just do this when event happens:
scope.$apply(function(){
scope.ngModel=newValue;
})
The apply will be needed so angular can call digest cycle again and update the view.
More info, I think this can help:
http://docs.angularjs.org/guide/directive

Manipulating DOM in directive, now what?

I have made a directive (inline-edit) and manipulated the DOM in the compile function, but how can I make the other directives that I have added to work? I guess I need to compile it, but how? See my jsfiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/tidelipop/m4gbZ/
ng-click does not work as it is, but the strange thing is, why do ng-bind work? You can see that it does work if you unhide the textarea in dev tools.
angular.module('MyApp', [], function($compileProvider){
$compileProvider.directive("inlineEdit", function($compile, $q){
return {
restrict: "A",
scope: true,
controller: function($scope){
$scope.editMode = true;
$scope.save = function(){
console.log("Saving...");
};
},
compile: function(tElement, tAttrs){
tElement
.attr("ng-hide", "editMode")
.attr("ng-click", "editMode=!editMode")
.after("<textarea ng-show=\"editMode\" ng-model=\""+tAttrs.ngBind+"\"></textarea><button ng-click=\"save()\">Save</button>");
//var scopeResolver = $q.defer();
//$compile(tElement.parent().contents())(scopeResolver.promise);
return function(scope, element, attrs, controller){
//scopeResolver.resolve(scope);
//$compile(element.parent().contents())(scope);
console.log(element.parent().contents());
};
}
};
});
})
.controller("UserAdminCtrl", function($scope){
$scope.data_copy = {
user: {
user_id: 'sevaxahe',
comment: 'test'
}
};
});
It looks like your directive is conflicting with the ng-bind, I don't really know why, but the question I asked myself looking at your code was : Wouldn't it be easier using a template and a custon attribute for the model (instead of ng-bind) ?
And the answer is yes !
Actually that's just my opinion, but here is what I did by modifying your code http://jsfiddle.net/DotDotDot/m4gbZ/73/
I let you have a look, I had to change some parts (the ng-click doesn't work well on the textarea so I put this behavior on the Save button) but I think this is almost what you wanted. On code side, I modified the HTML to avoid calling ng-bind, using a custom scope variable which will be caught in the directive :
<span inline-edit ff="data_copy.user.comment">First</span>
On the directive side, I got rid of all the compile/controller stuff, and I added a template
return {
restrict: "A",
template:'<div><span ng-hide="editMode" ng-click="editMode=!editMode">{{aModel}}</span><textarea ng-show="editMode" ng-model="aModel"></textarea> <button ng-click="save()">{{getLabel()}}</button></div>',
replace:true,
scope: {aModel:'=ff'},
link: function(scope, element, attrs){
console.log(element)
scope.editMode = true;
scope.save = function(){
console.log("Saving...");
scope.editMode=!scope.editMode;
};
scope.getLabel=function(){
if(scope.editMode)
return "Save";
else
return "Change";
}
console.log(element.parent().contents());
}
}
Why ? The template, because angular will compile it itself without any intervention.
I added replace:true to replace the line, but it's optionnal
The scope part is more important. scope: {'=ff'} tells angular that I want to use an isolated scope, and I want the scope.aModel value to be bound with the ff variable passed in the HTML.
The '=' means that the modifications will be evaluated from the parent scope, and every modification will be reflected in the parent and in the directive
I replaced your controller and your compile function (no element to compile, and adding function can be done here instead of a dedicated controller) by a linking function containing the functions needed. As I said before, I added the editMode change behavior to the Save button, so I added a bit more code, but it's not the main point, I think you may have to change things here to reflect your expected behavior
I hope this will help you, as I don't really answer your question, but I think you could also explore this way
++

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