block includes include ../_util-fns :marked An **Attribute** directive changes the appearance or behavior of a DOM element. :marked In this chapter we will * [write an attribute directive to change the background color](#write-directive) * [apply the attribute directive to an element in a template](#apply-directive) * [respond to user-initiated events](#respond-to-user) * [pass values into the directive using data binding](#bindings) Try the . ## Directives overview There are three kinds of directives in Angular: 1. Components 1. Structural directives 1. Attribute directives A *Component* is really a directive with a template. It's the most common of the three directives and we tend to write lots of them as we build applications. [*Structural* directives](structural-directives.html) can change the DOM layout by adding and removing DOM elements. [NgFor](template-syntax.html#ngFor) and [NgIf](template-syntax.html#ngIf) are two familiar examples. An *Attribute* directive can change the appearance or behavior of an element. The built-in [NgStyle](template-syntax.html#ngStyle) directive, for example, can change several element styles at the same time. We are going to write our own attribute directive to set an element's background color when the user hovers over that element. .l-sub-section :marked We don't need *any* directive to simply set the background color. We can set it with the special [Style Binding](template-syntax.html#style-binding) like this: +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.1.html','p-style-background') :marked That wouldn't be nearly as much fun as creating our own directive. Besides, we're not just *setting* the color; we'll be *changing* the color in response to a user action, a mouse hover. .l-main-section a#write-directive :marked ## Build a simple attribute directive An attribute directive minimally requires building a controller class annotated with `@Directive`, which specifies the selector identifying the attribute associated with the directive. The controller class implements the desired directive behavior. Let's build a small illustrative example together. :marked ### Our first draft Create a new project folder (`attribute-directives`) and follow the steps in the [QuickStart](../quickstart.html). include ../_quickstart_repo :marked Create the following source file in the indicated folder with the given code: +makeExample('app/highlight.directive.1.ts') block highlight-directive-1 :marked We begin by importing some symbols from the Angular `core`. We need the `Directive` symbol for the `@Directive` decorator. We need the `ElementRef` to [inject](dependency-injection.html) into the directive's constructor so we can access the DOM element. We don't need `Input` immediately but we will need it later in the chapter. Then we define the directive metadata in a configuration object passed as an argument to the `@Directive` decorator function. :marked `@Directive` requires a CSS selector to identify the HTML in the template that is associated with our directive. The [CSS selector for an attribute](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Attribute_selectors) is the attribute name in square brackets. Our directive's selector is `[myHighlight]`. Angular will locate all elements in the template that have an attribute named `myHighlight`. .l-sub-section :marked ### Why not call it "highlight"? *highlight* is a nicer name than *myHighlight* and, technically, it would work if we called it that. However, we recommend picking a selector name with a prefix to ensure that it cannot conflict with any standard HTML attribute, now or in the future. There is also less risk of colliding with a third-party directive name when we give ours a prefix. We do **not** prefix our `highlight` directive name with **`ng`**. That prefix belongs to Angular. We need a prefix of our own, preferably short, and `my` will do for now. p | After the #[code @Directive] metadata comes the directive's controller class, which contains the logic for the directive. +ifDocsFor('ts') | We export `HighlightDirective` to make it accessible to other components. :marked Angular creates a new instance of the directive's controller class for each matching element, injecting an Angular `ElementRef` into the constructor. `ElementRef` is a service that grants us direct access to the DOM element through its `nativeElement` property. That's all we need to set the element's background color using the browser DOM API. .l-main-section a#apply-directive :marked ## Apply the attribute directive The `AppComponent` in this sample is a test harness for our `HighlightDirective`. Let's give it a new template that applies the directive as an attribute to a paragraph (`p`) element. In Angular terms, the `

` element will be the attribute **host**. p | We'll put the template in its own code #[+adjExPath('app.component.html')] | file that looks like this: +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.1.html',null,'app/app.component.html')(format=".") :marked A separate template file is clearly overkill for a 2-line template. Hang in there; we're going to expand it later. Meanwhile, we'll revise the `AppComponent` to reference this template. +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.ts',null,'app/app.component.ts') :marked We've added an `import` statement to fetch the 'Highlight' directive and, added that class to a `directives` component metadata so that Angular will recognize our directive when it encounters `myHighlight` in the template. We run the app and see that our directive highlights the paragraph text. figure.image-display img(src="/resources/images/devguide/attribute-directives/first-highlight.png" alt="First Highlight") .l-sub-section :marked ### Your directive isn't working? Did you remember to set the `directives` attribute of `@Component`? It is easy to forget! Open the console in the browser tools and look for an error like this: code-example(format="nocode"). EXCEPTION: Template parse errors: Can't bind to 'myHighlight' since it isn't a known native property :marked Angular detects that we're trying to bind to *something* but it doesn't know what. We have to tell it by listing `HighlightDirective` in the `directives` metadata array. :marked Let's recap what happened. Angular found the `myHighlight` attribute on the `

` element. It created an instance of the `HighlightDirective` class, injecting a reference to the element into the constructor where we set the `

` element's background style to yellow. .l-main-section a#respond-to-user :marked ## Respond to user action We are not satisfied to simply set an element color. Our directive should set the color in response to a user action. Specifically, we want to set the color when the user hovers over an element. We'll need to 1. detect when the user hovers into and out of the element, 2. respond to those actions by setting and clearing the highlight color, respectively. We apply the `@HostListener` !{_decorator} to methods which are called when an event is raised. +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/highlight.directive.2.ts','host')(format=".") .l-sub-section :marked The `@HostListener` !{_decorator} refers to the DOM element that hosts our attribute directive, the `

` in our case. We could have attached event listeners by manipulating the host DOM element directly, but there are at least three problems with such an approach: 1. We have to write the listeners correctly. 1. We must *detach* our listener when the directive is destroyed to avoid memory leaks. 1. We'd be talking to DOM API directly which, we learned, is something to avoid. Let's roll with the `@HostListener` !{_decorator}. :marked Now we implement the two mouse event handlers: +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/highlight.directive.2.ts','mouse-methods')(format=".") :marked Notice that they delegate to a helper method that sets the color via a private local variable, `#{_priv}el`. We revise the constructor to capture the `ElementRef.nativeElement` in this variable. +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/highlight.directive.2.ts','ctor')(format=".") :marked Here's the updated directive: +makeExample('app/highlight.directive.2.ts') :marked We run the app and confirm that the background color appears as we move the mouse over the `p` and disappears as we move out. figure.image-display img(src="/resources/images/devguide/attribute-directives/highlight-directive-anim.gif" alt="Second Highlight") .l-main-section a#bindings :marked ## Configure the directive with binding Currently the highlight color is hard-coded within the directive. That's inflexible. We should set the color externally with a binding like this: +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.html','pHost') :marked We'll extend our directive class with a bindable **input** `highlightColor` property and use it when we highlight text. Here is the final version of the class: +makeExcerpt('app/highlight.directive.ts', 'class') a#input :marked The new `highlightColor` property is called an *input* property because data flows from the binding expression into our directive. Notice the `@Input()` #{_decorator} applied to the property. +makeExcerpt('app/highlight.directive.ts', 'color') :marked `@Input` adds metadata to the class that makes the `highlightColor` property available for property binding under the `myHighlight` alias. We must add this input metadata or Angular will reject the binding. See the [appendix](#why-input) below to learn why. .l-sub-section :marked ### @Input(_alias_) The developer who uses this directive expects to bind to the attribute name, `myHighlight`. The directive property name is `highlightColor`. That's a disconnect. We could resolve the discrepancy by renaming the property to `myHighlight` and define it as follows: +makeExcerpt('app/highlight.directive.ts', 'highlight', '') :marked Maybe we don't want that property name inside the directive perhaps because it doesn't express our intention well. We can **alias** the `highlightColor` property with the attribute name by passing `myHighlight` into the `@Input` #{_decorator}: +makeExcerpt('app/highlight.directive.ts', 'color', '') :marked Now that we're getting the highlight color as an input, we modify the `onMouseEnter()` method to use it instead of the hard-coded color name. We also define red as the default color to fallback on in case the user neglects to bind with a color. +makeExcerpt('attribute-directives/ts/app/highlight.directive.ts', 'mouse-enter', '') :marked Now we'll update our `AppComponent` template to let users pick the highlight color and bind their choice to our directive. Here is the updated template: +makeExcerpt('attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.html', 'v2', '') .l-sub-section :marked ### Where is the templated *color* property? The eagle-eyed may notice that the radio button click handlers in the template set a `color` property and we are binding that `color` to the directive. We should expect to find a `color` on the host `AppComponent`. **We never defined a color property for the host *AppComponent***! And yet this code works. Where is the template `color` value going? Browser debugging reveals that Angular dynamically added a `color` property to the runtime instance of the `AppComponent`. This is *convenient* behavior but it is also *implicit* behavior that could be confusing. While it's cool that this technique works, we recommend adding the `color` property to the `AppComponent`. :marked Here is our second version of the directive in action. figure.image-display img(src="/resources/images/devguide/attribute-directives/highlight-directive-v2-anim.gif" alt="Highlight v.2") .l-main-section :marked ## Bind to a second property Our directive only has a single, customizable property. What if we had ***two properties***? Let's allow the template developer to set the default color, the color that prevails until the user picks a highlight color. We'll add a second **input** property to `HighlightDirective` called `defaultColor`: +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/highlight.directive.ts', 'defaultColor')(format=".") :marked The `defaultColor` property has a setter that overrides the hard-coded default color, "red". We don't need a getter. How do we bind to it? We already "burned" the `myHighlight` attribute name as a binding target. Remember that a *component is a directive too*. We can add as many component property bindings as we need by stringing them along in the template as in this example that sets the `a`, `b`, `c` properties to the string literals 'a', 'b', and 'c'. code-example(format="." ). <my-component [a]="'a'" [b]="'b'" [c]="'c'"><my-component> :marked We do the same thing with an attribute directive. +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.html', 'defaultColor')(format=".") :marked Here we're binding the user's color choice to the `myHighlight` attribute as we did before. We're *also* binding the literal string, 'violet', to the `defaultColor`. Here is the final version of the directive in action. figure.image-display img(src="/resources/images/devguide/attribute-directives/highlight-directive-final-anim.gif" alt="Final Highlight") .l-main-section :marked ## Summary We now know how to - [build a simple **attribute directive** to attach behavior to an HTML element](#write-directive), - [use that directive in a template](#apply-directive), - [respond to **events** to change behavior based on an event](#respond-to-user), - and [use **binding** to pass values to the attribute directive](#bindings). The final source: +makeTabs( `attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.ts, attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.html, attribute-directives/ts/app/highlight.directive.ts, attribute-directives/ts/app/main.ts, attribute-directives/ts/index.html `, ',,full', `app.component.ts, app.component.html, highlight.directive.ts, main.ts, index.html `) a#why-input .l-main-section :marked ### Appendix: Input properties Earlier we declared the `highlightColor` property to be an ***input*** property of our `HighlightDirective` We've seen properties in bindings before. We never had to declare them as anything. Why now? Angular makes a subtle but important distinction between binding **sources** and **targets**. In all previous bindings, the directive or component property was a binding ***source***. A property is a *source* if it appears in the template expression to the ***right*** of the equals (=). A property is a *target* when it appears in **square brackets** ([ ]) to the **left** of the equals (=) ... as it is does when we bind to the `myHighlight` property of the `HighlightDirective`, +makeExample('attribute-directives/ts/app/app.component.html','pHost')(format=".") :marked The 'color' in `[myHighlight]="color"` is a binding ***source***. A source property doesn't require a declaration. The 'myHighlight' in `[myHighlight]="color"` *is* a binding ***target***. We must declare it as an *input* property. Angular rejects the binding with a clear error if we don't. Angular treats a *target* property differently for a good reason. A component or directive in target position needs protection. Imagine that our `HighlightDirective` did truly wonderous things. We graciously made a gift of it to the world. To our surprise, some people — perhaps naively — started binding to *every* property of our directive. Not just the one or two properties we expected them to target. *Every* property. That could really mess up our directive in ways we didn't anticipate and have no desire to support. The *input* declaration ensures that consumers of our directive can only bind to the properties of our public API ... nothing else.