include ../_util-fns

:marked
  # It Takes Many Heroes
  Our story needs more heroes.
  We’ll expand our Tour of Heroes app to display a list of heroes,
  allow the user to select a hero, and display the hero’s details.

  Let’s take stock of what we’ll need to display a list of heroes.
  First, we need a list of heroes. We want to display those heroes in the view’s template,
  so we’ll need a way to do that.

.callout.is-helpful
  header Source code
  :marked
    The complete source code for the example app in this chapter is
    [in GitHub](https://github.com/angular/angular.io/tree/master/public/docs/_examples/toh-2/dart).

.l-main-section
:marked
  ## Where We Left Off
  Before we continue with Part 2 of the Tour of Heroes,
  let’s verify we have the following structure after [Part 1](./toh-pt1.html).
  If not, we’ll need to go back to Part 1 and figure out what we missed.

.filetree
  .file angular2_tour_of_heroes
  .children
    .file lib
    .children
      .file app_component.dart
    .file web
    .children
      .file index.html
      .file main.dart
    .file pubspec.yaml
:marked
  ### Keep the app compiling and running
  We want to start the Dart compiler, have it watch for changes, and start our server. We'll do this by typing

code-example(format="." language="bash").
  pub serve

:marked
  This will keep the application running while we continue to build the Tour of Heroes.

.l-main-section
:marked
  ## Displaying Our Heroes
  ### Creating heroes
  Let’s create a list of ten heroes at the bottom of `app_component.dart`.

+makeExample('toh-2/dart/lib/app_component.dart', 'hero-array', 'app_component.dart (Hero list)')(format=".")

:marked
  The `mockHeroes` list is of type `Hero`, the class defined in part one,
  to create a list of heroes.
  We aspire to fetch this list of heroes from a web service, but let’s take small steps
  first and display mock heroes.

  ### Exposing heroes
  Let’s create a public property in `AppComponent` that exposes the heroes for binding.

+makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'hero-array-1', 'app_component.dart (Hero list property)')

.l-sub-section
  :marked
    We could have defined the heroes list here in this component class.
    But we know that ultimately we’ll get the heroes from a data service.
    Because we know where we are heading, it makes sense to separate the hero data
    from the class implementation from the start.
:marked
  ### Displaying heroes in a template
  Our component has `heroes`. Let’s create an unordered list in our template to display them.
  We’ll insert the following chunk of HTML below the title and above the hero details.

+makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'heroes-template-1', 'app_component.dart (Heroes template)')(format=".")

:marked
  Now we have a template that we can fill with our heroes.

  ### Listing heroes with ngFor

  We want to bind the list of `heroes` in our component to our template, iterate over them,
  and display them individually.
  We’ll need some help from Angular to do this. Let’s do this step by step.

  First modify the `<li>` tag by adding the built-in directive `*ngFor`.

+makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'heroes-ngfor-1', 'app_component.dart (ngFor)')

.alert.is-critical
  :marked
    The leading asterisk (`*`) in front of `ngFor` is a critical part of this syntax.

.l-sub-section
  :marked
    The (`*`) prefix to `ngFor` indicates that the `<li>` element and its children
    constitute a master template.

    The `ngFor` directive iterates over the `heroes` list returned by the `AppComponent.heroes` property
    and stamps out instances of this template.

    The quoted text assigned to `ngFor` means
    “*take each hero in the `heroes` list, store it in the local `hero` variable,
    and make it available to the corresponding template instance*”.

    The `let` keyword before "hero" identifies the `hero` as a template input variable.
    We can reference this variable within the template to access a hero’s properties.

    Learn more about `ngFor` and template input variables in the
    [Displaying Data](../guide/displaying-data.html#ngFor) and
    [Template Syntax](../guide/template-syntax.html#ngFor) chapters.

:marked
  Now we insert some content between the `<li>` tags
  that uses the `hero` template variable to display the hero’s properties.

+makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'ng-for', 'app_component.dart (ngFor template)')(format=".")

:marked
  When the browser refreshes, we see a list of heroes!

  ### Styling our heroes
  Our list of heroes looks pretty bland.
  We want to make it visually obvious to a user which hero we are hovering over and which hero is selected.

  Let’s add some styles to our component by setting the `styles` argument of the `@Component` annotation
  to the following CSS classes:

+makeExample('toh-2/dart/lib/app_component.dart', 'styles-1', 'app_component.dart (Styling)')(format=".")

:marked
  Notice that we again use the triple-quote notation for multi-line strings.

  When we assign styles to a component they are scoped to that specific component.
  Our styles will only apply to our `AppComponent` and won't "leak" to the outer HTML.

  Our template for displaying the heroes should now look like this:

+makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'heroes-styled', 'app_component.dart (Styled heroes)')

:marked
  That's a lot of styles! We can put them inline as shown here, or we can move them out to their own file which will make it easier to code our component.
  We'll do this in a later chapter. For now let's keep rolling.

.l-main-section
  :marked
    ## Selecting a Hero
    We have a list of heroes and we have a single hero displayed in our app.
    The list and the single hero are not connected in any way.
    We want the user to select a hero from our list, and have the selected hero appear in the details view.
    This UI pattern is widely known as "master-detail".
    In our case, the master is the heroes list and the detail is the selected hero.

    Let’s connect the master to the detail through a `selectedHero` component property bound to a click event.

    ### Click event
    We modify the `<li>` by inserting an Angular event binding to its click event.

  +makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'selectedHero-click', 'app_component.dart (Capturing the click event)')(format=".")

  :marked
    Focus on the event binding
  code-example(format="." language="bash").
    (click)="onSelect(hero)"
  :marked
    The parentheses identify the `<li>` element’s  `click` event as the target.
    The expression to the right of the equal sign calls the  `AppComponent` method, `onSelect()`,
    passing the template input variable `hero` as an argument.
    That’s the same `hero` variable we defined previously in the `ngFor`.
  .l-sub-section
    :marked
      Learn more about Event Binding in the
      [User Input](../guide/user-input.html) and
      [Templating Syntax](../guide/template-syntax.html#event-binding) chapters.
  :marked
    ### Add the click handler
    Our event binding refers to an `onSelect` method that doesn’t exist yet.
    We’ll add that method to our component now.

    What should that method do? It should set the component’s selected hero to the hero that the user clicked.

    Our component doesn’t have a “selected hero” yet either. We’ll start there.

    ### Expose the selected hero
    We no longer need the static `hero` property of the `AppComponent`.
    **Replace** it with this simple `selectedHero` property:

  +makeExample('toh-2/dart/lib/app_component.dart', 'selected-hero-1', 'app_component.dart (selectedHero)')

  :marked
    We’ve decided that none of the heroes should be selected before the user picks a hero so
    we won’t initialize the `selectedHero` as we were doing with `hero`.

    Now **add an `onSelect` method** that sets the `selectedHero` property to the `hero` the user clicked.
  +makeExample('toh-2/dart/lib/app_component.dart', 'on-select-1', 'app_component.dart (onSelect)')(format=".")

  :marked
    We will be showing the selected hero's details in our template.
    At the moment, it is still referring to the old `hero` property.
    Let’s fix the template to bind to the new `selectedHero` property.

  +makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'selectedHero-details', 'app_component.dart (Binding to the selectedHero\'s name)')(format=".")
  :marked
    ### Hide the empty detail with ngIf

    When our app loads we see a list of heroes, but a hero is not selected.
    The `selectedHero` is `undefined`.
    That’s why we'll see the following error in the browser’s console:

  code-example(language="html").
    EXCEPTION: TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of undefined in [null]

  :marked
    Remember that we are displaying `selectedHero.name` in the template.
    This name property does not exist because `selectedHero` itself is undefined.

    We'll address this problem by keeping the hero detail out of the DOM until there is a selected hero.

    We wrap the HTML hero detail content of our template with a `<div>`.
    Then we add the `ngIf` built-in directive and set it to the `selectedHero` property of our component.

  +makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'ng-if', 'app_component.dart (ngIf)')(format=".")

  .alert.is-critical
    :marked
      Remember that the leading asterisk (`*`) in front of `ngIf` is
      a critical part of this syntax.
  :marked
    When there is no `selectedHero`, the `ngIf` directive removes the hero detail HTML from the DOM.
    There will be no hero detail elements and no bindings to worry about.

    When the user picks a hero, `selectedHero` isn't `null` anymore and
    `ngIf` puts the hero detail content into the DOM and evaluates the nested bindings.
  .l-sub-section
    :marked
      `ngIf` and `ngFor` are called “structural directives” because they can change the
      structure of portions of the DOM.
      In other words, they give structure to the way Angular displays content in the DOM.

      Learn more about `ngIf`, `ngFor` and other structural directives in the
      [Structural Directives](../guide/structural-directives.html) and
      [Template Syntax](../guide/template-syntax.html#directives) chapters.

  :marked
    The browser refreshes and we see the list of heroes but not the selected hero detail.
    The `ngIf` keeps it out of the DOM as long as the `selectedHero` is undefined.
    When we click on a hero in the list, the selected hero displays in the hero details.
    Everything is working as we expect.

    ### Styling the selection

    We see the selected hero in the details area below but we can’t quickly locate that hero in the list above.
    We can fix that by applying the `selected` CSS class to the appropriate `<li>` in the master list.
    For example, when we select Magneta from the heroes list,
    we can make it pop out visually by giving it a subtle background color as shown here.

  figure.image-display
    img(src='/resources/images/devguide/toh/heroes-list-selected.png' alt="Selected hero")
  :marked
    We’ll add a property binding on `class` for the `selected` class to the template. We'll set this to an expression that compares the current `selectedHero` to the `hero`.

    The key is the name of the CSS class (`selected`). The value is `true` if the two heroes match and `false` otherwise.
    We’re saying “*apply the `selected` class if the heroes match, remove it if they don’t*”.
  +makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'class-selected-1', 'app_component.dart (Setting the CSS class)')(format=".")
  :marked
    Notice in the template that the `class.selected` is surrounded in square brackets (`[]`).
    This is the syntax for a Property Binding, a binding in which data flows one way
    from the data source (the expression `hero == selectedHero`) to a property of `class`.
  +makeExample('toh-2/dart-snippets/app_component_snippets_pt2.dart', 'class-selected-2', 'app_component.dart (Styling each hero)')(format=".")

  .l-sub-section
    :marked
      Learn more about [Property Binding](../guide/template-syntax.html#property-binding)
      in the Template Syntax chapter.

  :marked
    The browser reloads our app.
    We select the hero Magneta and the selection is clearly identified by the background color.

  figure.image-display
    img(src='/resources/images/devguide/toh/heroes-list-1.png' alt="Output of heroes list app")

  :marked
    We select a different hero and the tell-tale color switches to that hero.

    Here's the complete `app_component.dart` as it stands now:

  +makeExample('toh-2/dart/lib/app_component.dart', 'pt2', 'app_component.dart')

.l-main-section
:marked
  ## The Road We’ve Travelled
  Here’s what we achieved in this chapter:

  * Our Tour of Heroes now displays a list of selectable heroes
  * We added the ability to select a hero and show the hero’s details
  * We learned how to use the built-in directives `ngIf` and `ngFor` in a component’s template

  ### The Road Ahead
  Our Tour of Heroes has grown, but it’s far from complete.
  We can't put the entire app into a single component.
  We need to break it up into sub-components and teach them to work together
  as we learn in the [next chapter](toh-pt3.html).