/quoteBook

Primary LanguageJavaScript

quoteBook

Learning Objectives

  • understand the purpose of Services in Angular
  • know how to inject services into their controllers
  • know how to call methods on their services from in their controllers and put the response on $scope
  • know the difference between factories and services

###Step 1: Set up your Structure The first step whenever you're setting up an Angular App is to set up your foundation then check if your controller is tied to the view as it should be.

  • Create an index.html and a style.css file
  • Create a folder called js
  • In the js folder, create an app.js, dataService.js, and a mainCtrl.js file
  • Link your style.css sheet to your index.html page
  • In your index.html file create the basic structure of your html, be sure to include ng-app="quoteBook" and ng-controller="mainCtrl" to the appropriate places
  • In your app.js file set up 'home' for your angular app like below. Take note how you're going to include the [] as the second parameter. This tells Angular that you want to create a new module rather than just use an existing one. In all other files, we won't be using the [] because we want to use the module which has already been set.
var app = angular.module('quoteBook', []);
  • Now in your mainCtrl.js file set up your first controller (mainCtrl). The code will look like this
var app = angular.module('quoteBook');

app.controller('mainCtrl', function($scope){
  
});

Once again note we're 'getting' the quoteBook module rather than 'setting' ([]) it. Also, it's really important to remember that whenever you add a js file, you need to include those in your index.html file as scripts.

  • In your index.html file before the body tag closes include script tags which link to all your Angular files in the 'js' folder.
  • Now that your app and controller are set up and they're linked in your html page, add a test property to your scope object in your controller then verify that it works {{test}} in your html page.
  • If you see whatever text you entered into $scope.test in your view, continue to the next step. If not, check your console for any errors.

###Step 2: Set up your Angular Service The whole point of this repo is to get used to having your main data originating from a service and not a controller. Head over to your dataService.js file, 'get' the quoteBook module, then add a property of service (or factory) to the app. It's important to remember the differences between a 'factory' and 'service' in Angular because they don't behave the same. If you use app.factory() make sure you create an object, add properties to it, then return that object. If you use app.service(), you add properties to the 'this' keyword. More details here http://tylermcginnis.com/angularjs-factory-vs-service-vs-provider/

  • After you've created a new service or factory and made sure you included the file in your index.html file, add the following data in your service.
  var quotes = [
    { text: 'Life isn\'t about getting and having, it\'s about giving and being.', author: 'Kevin Kruse'},
    { text: 'Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve', author: 'Napoleon Hill'},
    { text: 'Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.', author: 'Albert Einstein'},
    { text: 'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.', author: 'Robert Frost'},
    { text: 'The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.', author: 'Amelia Earhart'},
    { text: 'Life is what happens to you while you\'re busy making other plans.', author: 'John Lennon'},
    { text: 'What even is a jQuery?', author: 'Tyler S. McGinnis'}
  ];

Notice we didn't put our quotes array directly on 'this' or your object you're going to return. That's because we don't want this data to be directly accessed from outside of this service. Instead, we're going to create 'getter' and 'setter' methods in order to get, add to, or remove parts of the quotes array making the quotes array 'private' to this service.

  • Now that we have our data, let's set up ways to access that data.
  • Create three methods on your 'this' (service) or custom object (factory), one called getData, one called addData, and one called removeData
  • getData simply returns the quotes array
  • addData takes in a data object, verifies that data object has the proper keys (just text and author), then adds that object to the end of the quotes array
  • removeData takes in the text of a quote, loops through the quotes array, then removes the proper quote from the array.

Once you finish those methods, this service should be complete. Now notice how all the heavy logic is contained in this one service which we can inject into any controller we create. This makes things very modular and testable.

##Step 3: Add Data from your Service to your Controller and Display it Now that your service is set up, let's inject your service in to your controller then add that data to the scope of your controller, then display it in your view

  • Inject your dataService into your mainCtrl
  • Use the proper method on your dataService object to get the quotes array then add it to your $scope object in your mainCtrl
  • Once the quotes data is on your scope, use ng-repeat to loop over that data in your index.html page and display it.

##Step 4: Add Options to Filter, Add, and Remove Items from your Quotes Array

  • Create three buttons, Add Quote, Remove Quote, and Filter Quotes
  • Using ng-click and the methods we set up on our dataService object earlier, make those three buttons do the appropriate action.
  • Once you've finished, add some ng-shows to 'toggle' the input boxes for add, remove, and filter making sure you only show one at a time.

##Step 5: Persist your Quotes as a cookie in your browser