This project adds helpers for DRYing up your angularjs projects. The eventual goal is to help you write even less code than angular normally makes you. My inspiration is Jose Valim's Inherited Resources gem.
- Coffeescript - though there is a javascript file of the compiled Coffeescript, to edit or test the project (as well as read the docs), you need to know some coffeescript. I will hopefully have a side-by side comparator in the docs letting people avoid need to know coffeescript to use the library.
- RESTful controllers where clientside models follow an equivalent naming convention. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but I am trying to build this functionality out to reduce the clientside boilerplate needed.
- Angular 1.0.1 - We are sticking to the "approved bleeding edge"
- JQuery is loaded somewhere in the asset pipeline.
Just load the angle-up.js file after you load angular.
Or if you are using angular-rails inside a Rails project, its generators will take care of adding angle-up.js to your asset pipeline.
The angle-up.js file contains some helper functions/objects/classes/services to clean things up.
There used to be a Router superclass for your main application router. However we no longer supply that because the angular routing code is now very clear.
The resourceService function lets you create endpoints for RESTful requests. This function has the following prototype:
(serviceName, path, methods...)->
This sets up angular services for the listed path, supportitg whathever methods are listed. It is called like:
resourceService 'Photos', '/photos/:photo_id', 'index'
This creates for you an object Photos which may be accessed @photos = Photos.index(). So far the accepted actions are 'index', 'show', 'update', 'create' and 'destroy'. If you leave off all actions, it will automatically assume that you want to support all 4. So if you call the function
resourceService 'SelectedPhotos', '/selected_photos/:selected_photo_id'
It will create all the necessary endpoints for you.
An autowrap function added to global namespace. This function takes a class to wrap the resource result in and optionally takes a function to pass it in to (e.g. if you need a function to alert the result). This function is passed in as the success function like so:
@todo_list = TodoListService.get {id:id}, autowrap(TodoList)
autowrap attempts to cast the prototype of the returned object to the class type. It also calls an initalize function if it exists. This way, if your object has a little richness to it, the initialize function can fire off some changes. This bring us to...
All classes that inherit from AngularModer may be used to wrap the results returned from angular. They also allow you to map hasMany associations like so (haven't needed belongsTo yet myself):
class @Todo extends AngularModel
schedule:(procrastinationTime)-> # postpone to future
class @TodoList extends AngularModel
hasMany:
todos: Todo
Basically, when initialize is called on an instance of AngularModel it recursively calls initialize (if it exists) on any subobjects found in the hasMany wrapping.
I added an eventuallyWork service. Basically if you call it with a function as its parameter it will keep running the function until it doesn't throw an exception. This is mostly useful for cases where you have an inner view that has values based on what is set in its outer view. When that view is visited via a bookmark there might not be time for the outer view to initialize. It can be run like this (notice the "fat" arrow):
eventuallyWork =>
for student in this.classroom.students
if student.id = $routeParams.student_id
this.reportCard = student.report_card