include ../_util-fns
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# Once Upon a Time
Every story starts somewhere. Our story starts where the [QuickStart](../quickstart.html) ends.
[Run the live example for part 1](/resources/live-examples/toh-1/ts/plnkr.html)
Create a folder called `angular2-tour-of-heroes` and follow the [QuickStart](../quickstart.html) steps
which provide the prerequisites, the folder structure, and the core files for our Tour of Heroes.
include ../_quickstart_repo
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We should have the following structure:
.filetree
.file angular2-tour-of-heroes
.children
.file app
.children
.file app.component.ts
.file main.ts
.file node_modules ...
.file typings ...
.file index.html
.file package.json
.file styles.css
.file systemjs.config.js
.file tsconfig.json
.file typings.json
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## Keep the app transpiling and running
We want to start the TypeScript compiler, have it watch for changes, and start our server. We'll do this by typing
code-example(format="" language="bash").
npm start
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This command runs the compiler in watch mode, starts the server, launches the app in a browser,
and keeps the app running while we continue to build the Tour of Heroes.
.l-main-section
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## Show our Hero
We want to display Hero data in our app
Let's add two properties to our `AppComponent`, a `title` property for the application name and a `hero` property
for a hero named "Windstorm".
+makeExample('toh-1/ts-snippets/app.component.snippets.pt1.ts', 'app-component-1', 'app.component.ts (AppComponent class)')(format=".")
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Now we update the template in the `@Component` decoration with data bindings to these new properties.
+makeExample('toh-1/ts-snippets/app.component.snippets.pt1.ts', 'show-hero')
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The browser should refresh and display our title and hero.
The double curly braces tell our app to read the `title` and `hero` properties from the component and render them.
This is the "interpolation" form of one-way data binding.
.l-sub-section
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Learn more about interpolation in the [Displaying Data chapter](../guide/displaying-data.html).
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### Hero object
At the moment, our hero is just a name. Our hero needs more properties.
Let's convert the `hero` from a literal string to a class.
Create a `Hero` class with `id` and `name` properties.
For now put this near the top of the `app.component.ts` file, just below the import statement.
+makeExample('toh-1/ts/app/app.component.ts', 'hero-class-1', 'app.component.ts (Hero class)')(format=".")
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Now that we have a `Hero` class, let’s refactor our component’s `hero` property to be of type `Hero`.
Then initialize it with an id of `1` and the name, "Windstorm".
+makeExample('toh-1/ts-snippets/app.component.snippets.pt1.ts', 'hero-property-1', 'app.component.ts (Hero property)')(format=".")
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Because we changed the hero from a string to an object,
we update the binding in the template to refer to the hero’s `name` property.
+makeExample('toh-1/ts-snippets/app.component.snippets.pt1.ts', 'show-hero-2')
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The browser refreshes and continues to display our hero’s name.
### Adding more HTML
Displaying a name is good, but we want to see all of our hero’s properties.
We’ll add a `
` for our hero’s `id` property and another `
` for our hero’s `name`.
+makeExample('toh-1/ts-snippets/app.component.snippets.pt1.ts', 'show-hero-properties')
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Uh oh, our template string is getting long. We better take care of that to avoid the risk of making a typo in the template.
### Multi-line template strings
We could make a more readable template with string concatenation
but that gets ugly fast, it is harder to read, and
it is easy to make a spelling error. Instead,
let’s take advantage of the template strings feature
in ES2015 and TypeScript to maintain our sanity.
Change the quotes around the template to back-ticks and
put the `
`, `
` and `
` elements on their own lines.
+makeExample('toh-1/ts-snippets/app.component.snippets.pt1.ts', 'multi-line-strings', 'app.component.ts (AppComponent\'s template)')
.callout.is-important
header A back-tick is not a single quote
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**Be careful!** A back-tick (`) looks a lot like a single quote (').
It's actually a completely different character.
Back-ticks can do more than demarcate a string.
Here we use them in a limited way to spread the template over multiple lines.
Everything between the back-ticks at the beginning and end of the template
is part of a single template string.
.l-main-section
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## Editing Our Hero
We want to be able to edit the hero name in a textbox.
Refactor the hero name `