Develop Reference

Angular2: Dynamically create view selector based on model property?

I've been a C/C++ coder for a long time, but am new to Angular2 and TypeScript. I have a TypeScript class (call it Node) which has a type: string property that specifies what sort of node it is. (The data comes as JSON from a server, and is basically being parsed out as a syntax tree.)
What I'm doing now in the view template in order to choose the view for each Node object is using an ngSwitch to check the value of node.type, and then inserting the appropriate selector using ngSwitchCase for each possible case, e.g.:
<div [ngSwitch]="node.type">
<node-type-a-view *ngSwitchCase="'a'" [(node)]="node"></node-type-a-view>
<node-type-b-view *ngSwitchCase="'b'" [(node)]="node"></node-type-a-view>
<node-type-c-view *ngSwitchCase="'c'" [(node)]="node"></node-type-a-view>
<div class="debug" *ngSwitchDefault>
TODO: View for type "{{node.type}}" is missing
</div>
</div>
The problem is that there are over a hundred different node types, and so this is going to be very unwieldy, very quickly.
What I'd like to do is something like this (but obviously this doesn't work in Angular2):
<node-type-{{node.type}}-view [(node)]="node"></node-type-{{node.type}}-view>
Or, using an attribute selector:
<div node-type-{{node.type}}-view [(node)]="node"></div>
Is there any functionality that comes close to what I'm looking for? I don't need to dynamically create the node-type-*-view views themselves, just the template that references them.
Also, apologies if I'm getting this architecture completely wrong. I'm still wrapping my head around the way Angular2 does things!
Thanks for any assistance you can give!

How can I position an Angular Material panel dialog relative to a button?

According to a discussion at Github one cannot position a standard dialog (api), but panel dialogs (api) can be positioned.
A simplified demo shows that this is true:
var position = this._mdPanel.newPanelPosition().bottom(0).right(0);
The Angular Material docs show a method that allows positioning relative to the clicked element (or whatever is passed in). I'm unable to get this to work, however.
var target = el.target;
var position = this._mdPanel.newPanelPosition().relativeTo(target);
Passing in hard values for .top() and .right(), for example, allows positioning relative to the viewport. I can't get positioning relative to the clicked element, though. How is this supposed to work?

I've been working with Angular Material for the past several months and still find the documentation lacking, so forgive the length of this post as my pseudo documentation on the issue. But here is what I do know:
I've only been able to get the panel location to work, relative to a target element, by chaining the addPanelPosition function onto the relativeTo function as such:
var position = this._mdPanel
.newPanelPosition()
.relativeTo(ev.target)
.addPanelPosition('align-start', 'below') // or other values
(in this case, ev is the $event object passed by ng-click)
I was able to track down the acceptable parameters for addPanelPosition and they are the following:
Panel y position only accepts the following values:
center | align-tops | align-bottoms | above | below
Panel x Position only accepts the following values:
center | align-start | align-end | offset-start | offset-end
Interstingly enough, in the Angular Material demo, they use the this._mdPanel.xPosition.ALIGN_START and this._mdPanel.yPosition.BELOW properties which simply resolve to strings as their x and y values for the addPanelPosition function. I've always gone straight with the string values. However, using string values could be problematic if the development of this feature is still in flux and they change the acceptable string values.
I'll point out one more issue I've seen.
Another trick they use in the demo is to specify a class name in the relativeTo function instead of a target element, then place that class on the target element itself. The reason this approach can be helpful is because the $event object from ng-click can provide different target elements based on what exactly was clicked. For example, clicking the button <div> is going to give a different target than clicking the <span> text inside the button. This wil cause your panel to shift locations unless you provide the additional functionality not to do so.
Codepen
I took their demo and really cut it down to size to focus on this issue. You can see the updated codepen here

As I post in a comment, here you can see it working on a plunker.
My solution is very close the to #I think I can code answer. However, in my answer, instead of a menu, a <md-dialog> is displayed when the button is clicked, as it's requested in the OP.
Besides the working plunker with a dialog, there is no much to add to the good #I think I can code answer. As it's shown in the angular-material md-panel demo, the key here is to set the position of the panel relative to the button. To do that (like in the angular-material demo), we can use a specific css class (demo-dialog-open-button in my example) to find the target element. this is a tricky thing in my opinion...but it works well for this use case (it's also well explained in the other answer).
Code for reference, see the plunker for the complete details:
html (note the css class added to the button):
<md-button class="md-primary md-raised demo-dialog-open-button" ng-click="ctrl.showDialog($event)">
Dialog
</md-button>
JS controller.
var position = this._mdPanel.newPanelPosition()
.relativeTo('.demo-dialog-open-button')
.addPanelPosition(this._mdPanel.xPosition.ALIGN_START, this._mdPanel.yPosition.BELOW);
Hope it helps

Dialogs are very simple widgets. Trapping focus is about the most complicated thing they do. It pains me that your issue has evolved into such a complex one.
Just to state the obvious, you do have complete control over positioning any individual dialog thanks to your configured class name.
.demo-dialog-example {
top: 20px;
left: 20px;
}
Also, in your showDialog method, why not set up a call-back via a promise for the open method? Something like:
this._mdPanel.open(config).then(function() {
var dialog = angular.element(document.querySelector('.demo-dialog-example'));
//Centering, positioning relative to target, or draggable logic goes here
});
I respect that you are trying to improve the logic of the plugin and do things the "Angular way", but these relatively simple requirements should not be causing you this much heartache.

How does the example variableInputs for Processing 2.0 javaScript mode works? How to tweak?

I'm using Processing.org looking at the example variableInputs in javaScript mode (can't find it online, but it is included with the download)
It has two tabs, one java and one .js. And a cool example on how to pass data around both.
In the first tab there are some HTML/CSS commented out. Those are building the page when I hit run...
How's that working?
Is it possible to have for instance more than one drop down menu (selector) side by side? I managed to have them, but always one below the another.
Is the way to go to edit the html in the first tab?
help?
do you need me to copy and paste the example here?
[EDIT]
When I hit export, the PDE exports:
index.html
processing.js //(the library it self)
interface.js //(the second tab in the PDE)
sketchName.pde //(the usual pde)
The html tags from above the code are included in index.html, so it can be edited there. Not sure though this is inserted in the html page. So putting the menus side by side turns out to be a HTML question I think... What i also don't know how to do :), but I'll look for it
[edit2] or perhaps a javaScript question... As is interface.js that is making th econtrols... How to control the position of them?
[edit3] well tuns out that the line
<form id="form-form"><!-- empty --></form>
is doing the link, via th id form-form...
Still is it possible to have some menus side by side inatead of one below another?

It is indeed a css/html issue as bfavaretto suggests. In order to do what you asked for try this:
style section in comments (java tab), essentially you have to make the two drop downs' width smaller (45%) and then css hacks to bring them inline, float:left or right
* <style>textarea,input,label,select{display:block;width:95%}select{width:45%;clear:none;float:left}
* input[type=checkbox],input[type=radio]{width: auto}textarea{height:5em},</style>
setController() method, add another ctrl.addMenu(); as such:
element = ctlr.addMenu( "theMenu", menuItems );
element = ctlr.addMenu( "theMenau", menuItems );
The problem after this is that the two labels block the two menus from coming in-line thus you probably have to remove them from these elements and add them manually. In the javascript tab comment out line 157:
//form.appendChild(label);
This line is in function this.addSelection = function ( l, o ) {

Minimal jQuery template

I am creating a UI, in which user can add / delete items (of similar layout).
It starts with one item and you can click 'add' to add more. The UI consists of several different types of items.
What I am doing currently is populating a single item item 1 ( of each type ) and on add event, I clone the item 1, replace the changes done by user in item 1 and append the clone to the container.
In simple words, instead of dynamically creating html with jQuery, I am cloning html of a div. But in this approach , I had to change a lot of things to keep to give the new item to initial state.
So, I want to avoid the replacing the edits done by user, so I was thinking something like below,
<script type="text/template" id="item_type1">
<div>
<div>Box</div>
</div>
</script>
<script type="text/template" id="item_type2">
<div>
<div>Box2</div>
</div>
</script>
And on add event, I want to do something like $('#item_type1').html() and $('#item_type2') to create new items.
I know there are sophisticated libraries like handlebar and mustache and underscore has its own way of implementing templates.
But I am not using any of these already and thus do not want to included them just to copy content. I dont want anything special. I am not passing variables. I am just cloning some markup to use again and again.
Is this way to insert html in script tags , going to work in all browsers ? and is it a good way ?
EDIT:
Its for the wp plugin and I assume js is turned on , else the plugin wont work anyways.

What about:
Your HTML should be, for example:
<script type="text/template" id="item_type1">
<div>
<h1>Box1</h1>
<p>
</p>
</div>
</script>
And your code would be:
var templateHtml = $('#item_type1').html();
var $item = $(templateHtml);
$('body').append($item);
$item.on('click', function() {});
This is an easy way that will work on all browsers.

Step 1: Create an HTML file with your template inside of it
Step 2: Using jQuery's load() method, call your HTML template into a div element in the main HTML file:
$("#main-div").load("yourtemplate.html")
Step 3: Be amazed
Is this a good idea? It depends:
If it's a self contained application on a known environment with a determined supported browser and with equally determined settings (like if JavaScript is on or not) then yea, sure. Why not?
If it's open to the public in every single browser possible with many different configurations, then no, it's a horrible idea. If your user doesn't have JavaScript enabled, then your content doesn't show up. Also, if one of your scripts break in production, then you are again left with no content. You can learn this lesson from when Gawker made this same mistake

How to create interactive tags in html file?

I don't know anything about programming, so I'm trying to find out where to start learning + how difficult my problem is. Since I don't have any programming knowledge, I'll try to describe my problem in natural language, hope that is OK.
I have the html file of the penal code (a type of law). It contains many different rules, that are in numbered paragraphs (§ 1, § 4, etc).
Now I want to look at the source code and manually “tag” the paragraphs according to specific criteria. For example all the paragraphs that concern the use of a weapon get the “weapon” tag, or that have a minimum sentencing of 1 year and higher get a “crime” tag, etc.
At the end I want to view an interactive html file in Firefox/Chrome, where I could for example click on a “crime” button, and all §§§ that were tagged with “crime” would appear in bold red, keeping the rest of the document intact. Ideally I would also be able to click on “weapon” and would only see the §§§ tagged with “weapon”, making the rest of the document disappear.
The function it's just for me, so it would only need to work on a Xubuntu 11.04 desktop with Firefox or Chrome. The original source file would be http://bundesrecht.juris.de/stgb/BJNR001270871.html. The code looks strange to me, is there a way to convert it into something more easily manually editable?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Primarily I don't know where to start learning. Do I need to know HTML, jQuery, or a programming language like Python? Do I need to set up an Apache server on my PC? Perhaps because of my ignorance of programming, this seems like a not too complex function. Am I mistaken in the belief that an amateur could build something like thins maybe one month?

I think this is not very difficult to make, although the tagging process can be quite labour-intensive.
You don't need much programming skills, especially when you want to tag stuff manually. You probably only need basic HTML and CSS and some Javascript to pull this off.
What I would do is the following
Create a local copy of the HTML file (use Save As in your browser)
Manually tag each § by giving it the appropriate tag as a classname
Create a list of all available tags and let javascript filter out the § you'd like to see
Now Step 1 is pretty easy I guess, so I'll go right to Step 2. The paragraphs in the HTML file are formatted according to a certain pattern, e.g.:
<div class="jnnorm" id="BJNR001270871BJNE009802307" title="Einzelnorm">
<div class="jnheader">
<a name="BJNR001270871BJNE009802307"/>Nichtamtliches Inhaltsverzeichnis
<h3><span class="jnenbez">§ 31</span> <span class="jnentitel">Rücktritt vom Versuch der Beteiligung</span></h3>
</div>
<div class="jnhtml">
<div>
<div class="jurAbsatz">
(1) Nach § 30 wird nicht bestraft, wer freiwillig etc.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
What you want to do now is add your tag to the <div> element with the class jnnorm. So the above example would become (if the tag weapon would be appropriate):
<div class="jnnorm weapon" id="BJNR001270871BJNE009802307" title="Einzelnorm">
You do that for each paragraph in the HTML. This will be pretty boring, but okay.
Now Step 3. First create a list of links of all the tags you've just created. How you create lists in html is explained here. Put this at the top of the HTML document. What you want to do with javascript is when you click on one of the links in your list that only the paragraphs with the given class are shown. This is most easily done with jQuery's click event and the show and hide methods.
Updated with jQuery example
Make a menu like this
<ul id="menu">
<li id="weapon">Weapons</li>
<li id="crime">Crime</li>
</ul>
And then use the following jQuery
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
// When a <li> element inside an <ul> with the id "menu" is clicked, do the following
$('ul#menu li').click(function(){
// Get the id of the <li> element and append a '.' so we get the right name for the tag (class) we want to show
var tag = '.' + $(this).attr('id');
// Hide all elements of class 'jnnorm'
$('.jnnorm').hide();
// Show all elements with the class name of tag we want
$(tag).show();
});
});
</script>
Note: HTML classes are denoted as .classname in jQuery whereas HTML id's are denoted as #idname.
Good luck!

This could be done using purely HTML/CSS and Javascript, so not server would be needed. JQuery would make the javascript side easier.
Basic idea of how to do it:
Use CSS style classes for your "tags"
Have a button for each tag with an onclick handler that uses JQuery to highlight everything with that tag (or make everything else invisible)
The HTML source code actually looks nicely structured, though it could use a few more linebreaks for sub-paragraphs. Any good HTML/XML editor has an autoformat feature that handles this, though you could get any specific format you want using a programming language with convenient text-manipulation facilities, such as Perl, awk or Python.