In my AngularJS application, I have a Session service object that contains stuff like the current user, their preferences, the current company they belong to, and the current theme that they are using. Many places in my application refer to the Session service when they need to get at this data.
Because these variables are in a service, I cannot use scope watches to detect changes. So instead, I've decided to use the observer pattern. Various places in the application, such as other services, directives, controllers, etc. will register themselves with the Session service and provide a callback to be executed whenever the Session changes.
For example, if the user changes their theme, the <style> element in index.html that uses a custom directive will be notified, and it will recreate all of the overriding css rules for the new colors.
For another example, whenever the user's avatar is updated, the main menu bar controller will be notified to refresh and redraw the avatar. Stuff like this.
Obviously the data in Session has to be refreshed at least once before the various controllers, directives, etc. use it. The natural place to ask the Session service to get its session data was in a run block for the application-level module. This works pretty well, but I don't think it's the best place either.
One problem I have noticed is that when Firebug is open, the asynchronous nature of things loading causes ordering issues. For example, the directive that runs on the <style> element will run AFTER the Session service has refreshed in the application's run block... which means the theme will not get updated after pressing F5 because the callback is registered after the initialization of the data occured. I would have to call a manual refresh here to keep it in sync, but if I did that, it may execute twice in the times where the order is different! This is a big problem. I don't think this issue is just related to Firebug... it could happen under any circumstance, but Firebug seems to cause it somewhat consistently, and this is bad.
To recap... This asynchronous ordering is good:
Theme Directive registers callback to Session
Menu Bar application controller registers callback to Session
Session.refresh() is called in .run block.
This asynchronous ordering is bad:
Menu Bar application controller registers callback to Session
Session.refresh() is called in .run block.
Theme Directive registers callback to Session, but callback does not get executed since Session.refresh() was already executed.
So rather than use the observer pattern, or refresh the Session state via a run block, what the best way to design the services, etc. so that the session data will ALWAYS get refreshed after (or maybe before) the various other parts of the application require it? Is there some kind of event I can hook into that gets executed before directives and controllers are executed instead of the run block?
If my approach is generally sound, what can I add to it to really make it work the way it should?
Thanks!
In angular.js you have 2 way of using global variables:
use a $rootScope
use a service
Using $rootScope is very easy as you can simply inject it into any controller and change values in this scope. All global variables have problems!
Services is a singletons(What you need)!
I think in your case you can use
$rootScope
And
$scope.$watch
Great answer
Is there a reason you can't access the variables directly like this:
app.factory('SessionService', function() {
var items = {
"avatar": "some url"
};
return items;
});
var MainController = [$scope, 'SessionService', function($scope, SessionService){
$scope.session = SessionService;
$scope.modifyAvatar = function(url){
$scope.session.avatar = "some new url";
};
}];
var HeaderController = [$scope, 'SessionService', function($scope, SessionService){
$scope.session = SessionService;
// You probably wouldn't do this, you would just bind
// to {{session.avatar}} in your template
$scope.getAvatar = function(){
return $scope.session.avatar;
};
}];
Related
I'm building an app that needs to detect when a user loses internet connectivity or cannot reach the server. Multiple controllers and services need to be able to check and set this. I have achieved all of this with no problem using an angular service and
window.addEventListener('offline', function() {OfflineService.checkIfOnline});
then in the service with something like
window.navigator.onLine ? online = true : online = false
The tricky part comes in when I need to update the view when the offline event occurs. I can't seem to find a way to update the scope property or a controller property when the service property gets updated by the event.
When I use $scope.$watch, the function fires 10 times (noted by console.log) and then never again.
I tried to replicate the problem in a jsfiddle, but this is my first time using that tool, and I'm not sure if I did it right:
https://jsfiddle.net/m3nx5yLm/1/
Thank you for your help.
Thank you everyone for your help.
I ended up going with a solution suggested by a buddy of mine. Using $rootScope.$emit('offlineEvent' true); in the service and listening for it in the controller with $rootScope.$on('offlineEvent' this.setControllerProperty);.
https://jsfiddle.net/m3nx5yLm/3/
constructor($scope, OfflineNotificationService){
Looks like you were referencing the class from the scope not the instance created by the injector (needed to pass it in along with $scope). I also used the watch syntax where the first arg is a function just to be clear about making that call, the string syntax is typically just used to reference properties on scope. A few other notes you can just return the window.navigator.onLine and you can store the value on the service instance and reference it directly from the view, you can then call checkOnline periodically with a $timeout loop or listening for the online/offline events on the browser instead of using the watch to fire the function.
https://jsfiddle.net/m3nx5yLm/4/
As we work in angular when we route from one url to another then controller data is Rest but service data is not reset.
Can someone please explain why its not reset. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Services are only instantiated once and every component depending on the service gets the same shared instance of it. Services are not "reset"/destroyed/torn down, they're permanent. Controllers are bound to scopes and come and go with the scope.
This in fact allows you to have a constant "backend" in the form of services which retain their state throughout the entire life cycle of the app, while controllers are temporary things bound to views which come and go as the GUI changes.
Angular services are:
Lazily instantiated – Angular only instantiates a service when an
application component depends on it.
Singletons – Each component
dependent on a service gets a reference to the single instance
generated by the service factory.
You can read more about it in Angular's documentation: https://docs.angularjs.org/guide/services.
This issue was a bit old but let me share on how I did to delete my data stored in service.
service.ts
data: any;//I made a storage variable like this so it will be undefined value by default
removeProductData() {
this.data= undefined;
}
//In your component just call this function `removeData()` wherever you want to delete your data.
Relative Angular newbie here, and I am wrestling with what would seem like something most applications need:
Watching a model/data and doing something when that model is hydrated and/or has a state change.
Use case would be, when a user logs in (user model gets initiated) a complimentary directive/controller sees the state change, and then requests out to the backend to get a list of this users corresponding data elements (ie Notifications, emails, friends, etc)
Ive parsed through StackOverflow and such, and it always appears that a shared service is the way to go, however I never find a definitive answer about how the directives are to watch the state change. Some suggest a broadcast/watch while others say that is a bad pattern.
Our app currently does employ a shared UserService, which contains model representation of a User (data and simple methods is fullName())
This service also has a subscription hook that directives can subscribe to
onLogin: (fn) ->
$rootScope.$on userService::login, fn
and the use is:
UserService.onLoad(myFunction)
When the UserService loads the User, it then broadcasts userService::login and all the listeners are run. Hence everyone that shares the UserService can subscribe and respond to a User logging in.
This all works. But I was thinking there must be a built in Angular way that the directives can just know about the state change and then do myFunction (ie make additional data calls)
Thoughts and feeling would be extremely appreciated!
I'm in the process of building out a fairly large Angular app and I've stuck to the design of building 'thin' controllers. My controllers don't try to do too much, they are each focused on one piece of functionality within my app.
There, however, is certain data that is 'shared' between controllers. I aim to avoid using $rootScope and instead rely on services to share data and 'state'.
When looking in the 'Network' tab of Chrome Dev Tools I notice certain services being called half a dozen times. So my question is, is this bad design? Are multiple calls to the same service within an Angular app not the 'Angular way' to do things? Note: these service calls take ~ 20ms each, so clearly not much of a performance hit...so far.
I'd suggest reducing the number of unnecessary HTTP requests that you're making for two reasons:
In production environments, these HTTP requests may take more time to complete when factors such as network latency or server load are taken into account; and
will delay the loading of any other assets such as images (assuming that they're coming from the same domain).
An approach that I've used when dealing with the scenario that you've described is to cache the response/data from the API in the service. So, on subsequent calls to the service, the data can be pulled from the cache rather than the API.
See a brief example below:
angular.module('app', ['ngResource'])
.factory('Post', ['$resource', function($resource) {
var posts = [];
var service = {
all: all
}
return service;
function all() {
// if cached posts exist, return those. Otherwise, make call to external API.
if (posts.length > 0) {
return posts.$promise;
} else {
posts = $resource('http://localhost/api/v1/posts.json').query();
return posts.$promise;
}
}
}]);
Note: you'll also have to consider resetting your cache however this would be dependent on your application logic.
Hope this helps!
L
In this case you should look to use $cacheFactory to reduce service calls.
Are you talking about REST services? Are you making $http calls in order to share data and state between controllers?
Why not use service/factory in Angular?
What you need is
1. DataCache service/factory - which will store your response from server
2. A directive - to call these services. include it in your different views
3. Now inside your service which is responsible for making http call first check if data is available in cache if yes return promise of stored data (you can use $q.when) if not make service call.
I have mentioned point 2 since I am assuming inside your various controller you must be doing something like AbcFactory.getItem().then() to avoid duplication of this code as you never know when the requirement will change since change is the only constant during development ;)
EDIT
The short version:
Say I have application data is many different services. How do I get around needing to inject all of those services into every controller that displays application state?
EDIT
I am building my first Angular application. The basic design is I have a home page that shows the value of about 5 different variables (which are each pretty complicated). While on this page the app is collecting and analyzing data from bluetooth. Occasionally, the these 5 variables and some bluetooth data are saved to a REST back end and also saved to the device. There are pages for each of these 5 variables to change their value.
I have done my best to follow best practices. I have very thin controllers. I use services for all my data. I really only use $scope for binding data between views and controllers.
My issue now is that I started with a global "State" service to keep track of those 5 variables. I inject into any controller that needs to display state, and bind the html to it. Any time I want to change any state, I call a method of that State service to do it. This worked well, but now that State service is getting huge.
I have tried to break functions out to other services, but I run into the issue of needing to read data from the State service, then writing back to other properties of the State service. If I inject the other service into State, I can't inject State into the other service too.
I have thought about how I could have many smaller services, but I keep coming back to when I save the data to the server. When I do that I need to gather up data from every corner of the application to send up. If all this information is stored in different services, I am left with injecting all of them into a single service once again.
As I write this, I am pretty sure I am missing a big concept with using $scope across an application.
Any pointers would be appreciated,
Thanks,
Scott
Could you divide things into sub-services, and then make the State service an aggregator for these sub-services, then instead of injecting State into the sub-services, you inject the specific sub-service that you need? E.g.:
var app = angular.module('services', []);
app.service('sub1', function(){
return {
// ...
}
});
app.service('sub2', function(sub1){
var data = sub1.getData();
data.prop = 'new_value';
sub1.setData(data);
return {
// ...
}
});
app.service('State', function(sub1, sub2){
var data = sub1.getData();
data.prop = 'new_value';
sub1.setData(data);
var data = sub2.getData();
data.prop = 'new_value';
sub2.setData(data);
return {
// ...
}
});
Looks like you need Redux to help you manage your application state
https://github.com/wbuchwalter/ng-redux