Angular Event Broker Service

Introduction

In Angular application, we often require to pass data and messages between components and classes. If parent/child component hierarchy is present then we can pass data using @Input() and @Output() decorators. If not then we can create custom event service and pass events/data. This library exports EventBrokerService which is available through application level and can be injected in any declarable classes. Using EventBrokerService application events can flow in streamline fashion without mixing component's logic with event handling and publishing code.

Setup

Install library in your Angular project using command npm install --save ng-event-broker
Import EventBrokerModule from ng-event-broker library

import { EventBrokerModule } from 'ng-event-broker';

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
  ],
  imports: [
    EventBrokerModule
  ],
  providers: [],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
})
export class AppModule { }

Define your application level events in separate file events.model.ts. For example,

export const Events = {
  loginFailed: 'loginFailed',
  loginSuccessful: 'loginSuccessful',
  logout:'logout',
  productAdded:'productAdded',
  productRemoved:'productRemoved',
  cartCountUpdated: 'cartCountUpdated'
}

Register application wide events in ngOnInit() of AppComponent. Before publishing or subscribing to any events, they must be registered. As AppComponent is root component, we should define our application wide events here.

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  templateUrl: './app.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./app.component.css']
})
export class AppComponent {

  constructor(private eventService: EventBrokerService) {
  }

  ngOnInit() {
    this.registerAppEvents();
  }

  private registerAppEvents() {
    this.eventService.registerEvent(Events.loginSuccessful);
    this.eventService.registerEvent(Events.logout);
    this.eventService.registerEvent(Events.productAdded);
    this.eventService.registerEvent(Events.productRemoved);
    this.eventService.registerEvent(Events.cartCountUpdated);
  }

Once events are registered, we can publish and subscribe them in rest of application. For example, in below code HeaderComponent subscribe to event cartCountUpdated. Whenever this event is published, onCartUpdated() method will be called. Similarly on Logout button click, HeaderComponent will publish logout event for subscribers to handle it.

<li><a href="javascript:void(0);" (click)="logout()">Logout</a></li>

@Component({
  selector: 'app-header',
  templateUrl: './header.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./header.component.css']
})
export class HeaderComponent implements OnInit {

  cartItemCount = 0;

  constructor(private eventService: EventBrokerService) { }

  ngOnInit() {
    this.eventService.subscribeEvent(Events.cartCountUpdated).subscribe((cartCount: number) => this.onCartUpdated(cartCount))
  }

  onCartUpdated(cartCount: number) {
    this.cartItemCount = cartCount;
  }

  logout() {
    this.eventService.publishEvent(Events.logout);
  }

}

Publish event

To publish event, simply call publishEvent(payload) where paylaod can be value of type any.

this.eventService.subscribeEvent(Events.cartCountUpdated).subscribe((cartCount: number) => this.onCartUpdated(cartCount))
  }

Make sure, event is registered first using registerEvent() before publishing.

Subscribe event

To subscribe event, simply call subscribeEvent() function which returns EventEmitter<any>. You can call subscribe() on this event emitter and handle event.

this.eventService.subscribeEvent(Events.cartCountUpdated).subscribe((cartCount: number) => this.onCartUpdated(cartCount))
  }

Clear all events

We can clear all events using clearEvents() function.

Basic eShop example with EventBrokerService

You can find complete source code of very basic eShop demo application and see how events are passed and handled throughout application.

https://github.com/ultrasonicsoft/ng-event-broker-service-example

Demo

You can play around with Demo here.

Contribution

Feel free to contribute to this project by raising PR in GitHub repository.