Nicolas Embleton, Advanced Angular JS

Angular.JS
Advanced Angular.JS - GDayX VN 2013

About me
Nicolas Embleton, French in Ho Chi Minh City
●
●
●
●

2005 - Software Engineer and System Architect, working on legacy tech
stacks (C++, OpenGL, Java, ...) then quickly Web (PHP)
2009 - Founded a Mobile Development Company of 30 individuals
2011 - Started Datafield Startup, Co-founder, CTO
2013 - Started the Javascript Ho Chi Minh City meetup, Getting active in
Startup Vietnamese scene to support and mentor young talents

Agenda
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

Quick Intro
Bootstrapping
Why Angular?
Main features, and why it's awesome
Best practices
Testing, tooling
And SEO?
Final words

Intro (quick)
From Wikipedia:
AngularJS is built around the belief that declarative programming should be used for building UIs
and wiring software components, while imperative programming is excellent for
expressing

business logic. The framework adapts and extends traditional HTML to better serve dynamic

content through

two-way data-binding that allows for the automatic synchronization of models and views. As a result,

AngularJS deemphasizes DOM manipulation and improves testability.

Angular JS quick review
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

Templating
Model View Controller (MVC)
Extends HTML (very flexible)
2-ways Data-binding
Very reusable (if you follow best practices)
Improves testability (because it is reusable)
Provides routing, history, jqLite, ...

Bootstrapping
● Using angular-seeds
○
○
○

git clone https://github.com/angular/angular-seed.git
node scripts/web-server.js
open http://localhost:8000/app/index.html

● Using yeoman (excellent workflow tool)
○
○
○
○
○

(sudo) npm install -g yo
(sudo) npm install -g generator-angular
yo angular
bower install angular-ui
grunt server

Now, the meat, the main features
●
●
●
●
●
●

Templating
Routing
2-ways data-binding
Directives
Services
Inter-components Communication

Templating
● Models
○ 2-way binding
○ Easy property mapping

● Built-in directives
○ ngView
■ Where the routing happens
○ ngRepeat
■ Iterator
○ ngIf
○ ngSwitch

Templating - Conditional with ngIf
<div ng-repeat="message in data.messages" ng-class="message.type">
<hr>
<div ng-if="showFrom(message)">
<div>From: {{message.from.name}}</div>
</div>
<div ng-if="showCreatedBy(message)">
<div>Created by: {{message.createdBy.name}}</div>
</div>
<div ng-if="showTo(message)">
<div>To: {{message.to.name}}</div>
</div>
</div>

Templating - Nested repeat
<div ng-repeat="group in groups">
<h2>{{ group.label }}</h2>
<ul>
<li ng-repeat="friend in group.friends">

{{ friend.name }}
</li>
</ul>
</div>

Templating - Example 2 - Switch
<div ng-switch on="selection" >
<div ng-switch-when="settings">Settings Div</div>
<span ng-switch-when="home">Home Span</span>
<span ng-switch-default>default</span>
</div>

Example 2.2 - Switch with 2-way bind
<div ng-controller ="Ctrl">
<select ng-model="selection" ng-options ="item for item in items" >
</select>
<tt>selection={{selection}} </tt>
<hr/>
<div class="animate-switch-container"
ng-switch on="selection">
<div ng-switch-when ="settings" >Settings Div </div>
<div ng-switch-when ="home">Home Span</div>
<div ng-switch-default >default</div>
</div>
</div>

Templating - Simple ngRepeat
<li ng-repeat="item in items">
Item: {{ item }}
</li>

Templating - Complex ngRepeat
<header ng-repeat-start="item in items">
Header {{ item }}
</header>
<div class="body">
Body {{ item }}
</div>
<footer ng-repeat-end>
Footer {{ item }}
</footer>

Compiling
// compile the new DOM and link it to the current scope.
// NOTE: we only compile .childNodes so that
// we don't get into infinite loop compiling ourselves
$compile(element.contents())(scope);

Templating - Routing
●
●
●
●

Happens in ngView
Routing is a very powerful feature
Allows to update "pieces" of the page
Can stream files from disk to make it truly
isolated

2-ways data-binding
●
●
●
●

●

Becoming more standard, thanks to frameworks like Ember.js or Angular.js
Linking 2 fields for synchronization purpose
Linking data to model
Automatically updating the template as data is changed
○ Arrays / Collections
○ Inputs
○ etc…
Example

2-ways data-binding, example
<input type="text" ng-model="title" style="width: 90%"/>
<div ng-app="myapp">
<div ng-controller="mycontroller">
Title: {{ title }} 
<hr>
<div class="zippy" zippy-title="title"></div>
</div>
</div>

Directives
● Angular.js killer feature
● Great deal of re-usability
● Just look for directives at ngmodules.org

Restricting Directives
●
●
●
●
●

"E": Element, <my-directive>
"A": Attribute, <div my-directive>
"C": Class, <div class="my-directive">
"M": Comment: 
Combine (e.g. "EA") for more flexibility

Communicating between directives
● Many design patterns
● The "backbonier"
○ the emitter and the receiver

● A more connected example
○ the directive combinations and controller sharing

app.directive('directiveA', function($rootScope){ // $rootScope = App Scope
return function(scope, element, attrs) { // scope = Current scope (ctrl)
$rootScope.$on('someEvent', function(){
// From here we can react anytime there's an event "someEvent" triggered
});
};
});

app.directive('gdayx', function() { // Creating the directive
return {
restrict: 'E',
controller: function($scope) {

// Restricted to "element"
// Creating the controller of the directive

$scope.what = "";

// Local data

this.is = function(what) {

// External accessor

$scope.what = what;
}
},
link: function($scope, $element){
$element.bind("click", function() { // Binding on click
alert("GDayX is "+$scope.what); // Getting content from the Controller.
});
}
}

});

// This directive will "send" data to the first directive
app.directive('is', function() {
// Creating the directive
return {
require: "gdayx",
// Requiring the "gdayx" controller
restrict: 'A',
// Restricting to "attribute"
link: function(scope, element, attrs, gdayxCtrl) {
// gdayxCtrl from the "require: 'gdayx'"
gdayxCtrl.is(attrs.is); // Passing value to the "gdayx" controller
}
}
});

AngularJS - Why is it awesome?
●
●
●
●
●

Mature, production-ready
Feature-rich
The design and what it allows
Strong support from giants like Google
A lot of solid companies are embracing it
○ Ebay Commerce Network
○ DoubleClick (Google) - Marketing Manager &
Planner
○ YouTube APP on PS3

Best Practices
● Organize the code well (Captain Obvious!)
● Organize modules by feature
angular.module('users', ['utilities']);
angular.module('groups', ['utilities']);
angular.module('mainApp', ['users', 'groups']);

● Use the reusability as much as possible
● Use the testability as much as possible
○ TDD
○ BDD?

Testing, tooling
●
●
●
●
●
●

Yeoman
○ Super workflow tool and generator/scaffolder
Batarang
○ Chrome Debugger Extension, (A must have), link
Grunt
○ Task runner
Bower
○ Package Manager for JS Libraries
Protractor, Karma
○ Test Runner
Jasmine, Mocha
○ Test Frameworks

And SEO?
● Google "Snapshot" famous technic
○ _escaped_fragment_
○ Turns this:
■

http://prerender.io/getting-started#html5-pushstate

○ Into this:
■

http://prerender.io/getting-started?_escaped_fragment_=html5pushstate

● prerender.io/ - Open Source project
● brombone.com/ - Commercial project

Enterprise project with Angular?
● YES
● BUT

● YES
● BUT
○ Follow best practices (easier said than done)
○ System Architecture is KEY to a solid system
○ As "Agile" would advise, always try to go for simpler
but "well-thought" "team-friendly"designs.

● An example Architecture
Backend
(legacy)

A/B t

esting

Legacy Front End

?

Experimental Front
End

DB
Backend
(experimental)

Server-side team realm

Experimental Front
End 2

Front-End team realm

Final Words
● Angular 1.0.x is mature
● Angular 1.2+ will bring more awesomeness
○ Better and Fluid Animations (js/css3)
○ More flexibility and functionalities
■
■
■

$interval: add a service wrapping setInterval
Event directives: add ngCopy, ngCut, and ngPaste
jQuery 1.10.x support

Bootstrapped app
● Let's see a quick Angular App
● Bootstrapped from Yeoman

Where you can find me:
Author: Nicolas Embleton @: nicolas.embleton@gmail.com
Presentation made for “Google Developer Day GDayX 2013 Vietnam”
You can follow me at:
● https://plus.google.com/+NicolasEmbleton
● https://twitter.com/nicolasembleton
And the Javascript Ho Chi Minh City Meetup:
● http://meetup.com/JavaScript-Ho-Chi-Minh-City/
● https://www.facebook.com/JavaScriptHCMC
● https://plus.google.com/communities/116105314977285194967

Resources
Learning
●
●
●
●

Learning AngularJS by the example (+60 minutes-ish training video)
http://www.nganimate.org/
https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router
○ It's a full "nested-view" library
http://docs.angularjs.org/guide/dev_guide.templates.databinding

Reusable Components
●
●

http://ngmodules.org/
http://www.directiv.es/

Nicolas Embleton, Advanced Angular JS

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Nicolas Embleton, Advanced Angular JS

More from JavaScript Meetup HCMC

Recently uploaded

Nicolas Embleton, Advanced Angular JS