AngularJS Phone Catalog Tutorial Application

Overview

This application takes the developer through the process of building a web-application using angular. The application is loosely based on Google phone gallery. Each commit is a separate lesson teaching a single aspect of angular.

Prerequisites

Git

• A good place to learn about setting up git is here
• Git home (download, documentation)

Node.js

• Get Node.js.
• Additional installation instructions.

Workings of the application

• The application filesystem layout structure is based on the angular-seed project.
• There is no backend (no server) for this application. Instead we fake the XHRs by fetching static json files.
• Read the Development section at the end to familiarize yourself with running and developing an angular application.

Commits / Tutorial Outline

You can check out any point of the tutorial using git checkout step-?

To see the changes which between any two lessons use the git diff command. git diff step-?..step-?

step-0

• Initial angular-seed project layout

step-1

• We have converted the seed application by removing all of the boiler-plate code.
• We have added a single static HTML file which shows a static list of phones. We will convert this static page into dynamic one with the help of angular.

step-2

• Converted static page into dynamic one by:
  • creating a root controller for the application
  • extracting the data from HTML into a the controller as a mock dataset
  • converting the static document into a template with the use of ng: directive (iterate over mock data using ng:repeat and render it into a view)
• Added a unit test, which mostly shows how one goes about writing a unit test, rather than test something of value on our mock dataset.

step-3

• added a search box to demonstrate how:
  • the data-binding works on input fields
  • to use $filter function
  • ng:repeat automatically shrinks and grows the number of phones in the view
• added an end-to-end test to:
  • show how end-to-end tests are written and used
  • to prove that the search box and the repeater are correctly wired together

step-4

• replaced the mock data with data loaded from the server (in our case the JSON return is just a static file)
  • The JSON is loaded using the $xhr service
• Demonstrate the use of services and dependency injection
  • The $xhr is injected into the controller through dependency injection

step-5

• adding phone image and links to phone pages
• css to style the page just a notch

step-6

• making the order predicate for catalog dynamic
  • adding 'predicates' section to the view with links that control the order
  • ordering defaults to 'age' property
• css sugar

step-7

• Introduce the $route service which allows binding URLs for deep-linking with views
  • Replace content of root controller PhonesCtrl with $route configuration
  • Map `/phones' to PhoneListCtrl and partails/phones-list.html
  • Map `/phones/phone-id' to PhoneDetailCtrl and partails/phones-detail.html
  • Copy deep linking parameters to root controller params property for access in sub controllers
  • Replace content of index.html with ng:view
• Create PhoneListCtrl view
  • Move code which fetches phones data into PhoneListCtrl
  • Move existing HTML from index.html to partials/phone-list.html
• Create PhoneDetailsCtrl view
  • Wire $route service to map /phanes/phone-id to map to this controller.
  • Empty PhoneDetailsCtrl
  • Place holder partials/phane-details.html

step-8

• Fetch data for and render phone detail view
  • $xhr to fetch details for a specific phone
  • template for the phone detailed view
• CSS to make it look pretty
• Detail data for phones in JSON format

step-9

• replace $xhr with $resource
  • demonstrate how a resource can be created using a service

Development with angular-seed

The following docs apply to all angular-seed projects and since the phonecat tutorial is a project based on angular-seed, the instructions apply to it as well.

Running the app during development

1. run ./scripts/web-server.js
2. navigate your browser to http://localhost:8000/app/index.html to see the app running in your browser.

Running unit tests

We recommend using jasmine and Karma for your unit tests/specs, but you are free to use whatever works for you.

Requires node.js, Karma (sudo npm install -g karma karma-jasmine karma-chrome-launcher) and a local or remote browser.

• start scripts/test.sh (on windows: scripts\test.bat)
  • a browser will start and connect to the Karma server (Chrome is default browser, others can be captured by loading the same url as the one in Chrome or by changing the config/karma.conf.js file)
• to run or re-run tests just change any of your source or test javascript files

End to end testing

Angular ships with a baked-in end-to-end test runner that understands angular, your app and allows you to write your tests with jasmine-like BDD syntax.

Requires a webserver, node.js + ./scripts/web-server.js or your backend server that hosts the angular static files.

Check out the end-to-end runner's documentation for more info.

• Install the Karma ng-scenario adapter with npm install -g karma-ng-scenario
• create your end-to-end tests in test/e2e/scenarios.js
• serve your project directory with your http/backend server or node.js + scripts/web-server.js
• to run do one of:
  • open http://localhost:port/test/e2e/runner.html in your browser
  • run the tests from console with Karma via scripts/e2e-test.sh or script/e2e-test.bat

Application Directory Layout

app/                --> all of the files to be used in production
  css/              --> css files
    app.css         --> default stylesheet
  img/              --> image files
  index.html        --> app layout file (the main html template file of the app)
  index-async.html  --> just like index.html, but loads js files asynchronously
  js/               --> javascript files
    app.js          --> application
    controllers.js  --> application controllers
    directives.js   --> application directives
    filters.js      --> custom angular filters
    services.js     --> custom angular services
  lib/              --> angular and 3rd party javascript libraries
    angular/
      angular.js        --> the latest angular js
      angular.min.js    --> the latest minified angular js
      angular-*.js      --> angular add-on modules
      version.txt       --> version number
  partials/             --> angular view partials (partial html templates)
    partial1.html
    partial2.html

config/karma.conf.js        --> config file for running unit tests with Karma
config/karma-e2e.conf.js    --> config file for running e2e tests with Karma

scripts/            --> handy shell/js/ruby scripts
  e2e-test.sh       --> runs end-to-end tests with Karma (*nix)
  e2e-test.bat      --> runs end-to-end tests with Karma (windows)
  test.bat          --> autotests unit tests with Karma (windows)
  test.sh           --> autotests unit tests with Karma (*nix)
  web-server.js     --> simple development webserver based on node.js

test/               --> test source files and libraries
  e2e/              -->
    runner.html     --> end-to-end test runner (open in your browser to run)
    scenarios.js    --> end-to-end specs
  lib/
    angular/                --> angular testing libraries
      angular-mocks.js      --> mocks that replace certain angular services in tests
      angular-scenario.js   --> angular's scenario (end-to-end) test runner library
      version.txt           --> version file
  unit/                     --> unit level specs/tests
    controllersSpec.js      --> specs for controllers
    directivesSpec.js       --> specs for directives
    filtersSpec.js          --> specs for filters
    servicesSpec.js         --> specs for services

Contact

For more information on AngularJS please check out http://angularjs.org/