Angular 2 material dialog: refresh parent on dialog close

Question

I am using the angular material 2 dialog for adding items to a list. I have a component (AuthorListComponent) that contains the list (table). The component has a function called getAuthors that makes a rest call and renders a table in the template. I also have a button that opens a angular material 2 dialog for adding a new item:

https://github.com/angular/material2/blob/master/src/lib/dialog/README.md

What I can't figure out is when the item in the dialog is saved and the dialog closed, I want the AuthorListComponent to be refreshed so the newly added item displays. I think I have to use an event emitter somewhere to call the getAuthors function, however the dialog doesn't use a directive/html element that I can attach an event to.

This is my modal service:

import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Rx';
import { AuthorComponent } from '../author/author.component';
import { MdDialogRef, MdDialog, MdDialogConfig } from '@angular/material';
import { Injectable, ViewContainerRef } from '@angular/core';

@Injectable()
export class DialogService {

    constructor(private dialog: MdDialog) { }

    public openDialog(viewContainerRef: ViewContainerRef): Observable<boolean> {
        let dialogRef: MdDialogRef<AuthorComponent>;
        let config = new MdDialogConfig();
        config.viewContainerRef = viewContainerRef;
        config.disableClose = true;
        config.width = '600px';
        dialogRef = this.dialog.open(AuthorComponent, config);
        return dialogRef.afterClosed();
    }
}

This is the author component that gets loaded in the dialog:

import { Component, Input, OnInit } from '@angular/core';
import { ActivatedRoute, Router } from '@angular/router';
import { MdDialogRef } from '@angular/material';

import { AuthorService } from './author.service';

@Component({
    moduleId: module.id,
    selector: 'author-comp',
    templateUrl: 'author.component.html'
})

export class AuthorComponent implements OnInit {
    authorId: number;
    author = {};

    constructor(
        private route: ActivatedRoute, 
        private authorService: AuthorService,
        private router: Router,
        public dialogRef: MdDialogRef<AuthorComponent>
    ) 
    { }

    ngOnInit() {
        this.authorId = this.route.snapshot.params['AuthorId'];
        if (this.authorId)
        {
            this.authorService.getAuthor(this.authorId)
                .then((author) => {
                    this.author = author;
                    })
                .catch((error) => {
                    throw ('ngOnInit-getAuthor: ' + error);
                });
        }
    }

    saveAuthor(Author: any) {
        return this.authorService.saveAuthor(Author)
            .then(() => {
                this.dialogRef.close();
            })
            .catch(error => {
                throw ('saveAuthor-component: ' + error);
            });
    }
}

This is the author list component from where the dialog is opened:

import { Component, OnInit, ViewContainerRef } from '@angular/core';
import { ActivatedRoute, Router } from '@angular/router';

import { AuthorService } from './index';
import { DialogService } from '../shared/dialog.service';


@Component({
  moduleId: module.id,
  selector: 'author-list-comp',
  templateUrl: 'author-list.component.html'
})

export class AuthorListComponent implements OnInit {
  authors: any[];

  constructor(
    private authorService: AuthorService,
    private dialogService: DialogService,
    private viewContainerRef: ViewContainerRef,
    private router: Router
  )
  {}

  getAuthors() {
      this.authorService.getAuthors()
      .then((authors) => {
        this.authors = authors;        
      })
      .catch((error) => {
        throw('ngOnInit-getAuthors: ' + error)
      })
  }

  ngOnInit(){
    this.getAuthors();
  }

  public openDialog() {
    this.dialogService.openDialog(this.viewContainerRef);
  }
}

So I think I need to call the getAuthors function in the component above from either the dialog service or the author component. The other way I thought of was just to use router.navigate somehow.

Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

The simplest way to refresh parent on dialog close:

this.dialog.open(DialogComponent)
  .afterClosed()
  .subscribe(() => this.refreshParent());