Angular2 local components / template reuse

Question

I'm writing some Angular2 templates that have repetitive portions with different containers. In this case, the view can change if things are grouped and if multi section mode is enabled. Please excuse the long example, but something like this:

<template [ngIf]="isCategoryGrouped">
    <div *ngFor="#categories of categories">
        <div>{{ categories.category.name }}</div>
        <div *ngFor="#thing of categories.things">
            <label *ngIf="isMultiSelectMode">
                <input type="checkbox" (change)="updateThingSelection(thing, $event)" />
                <img [src]="thing.image" /> {{ thing.name }}
            </label>
            <a href="javascript: void(0)" (click)="selectThing(thing)" *ngIf="! isMultiSelectMode">
                <img [src]="thing.image" /> {{ thing.name }}
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>
</template>
<template [ngIf]="! isCategoryGrouped">
    <div *ngFor="#thing of things">
        <label *ngIf="isMultiSelectMode">
            <input type="checkbox" (change)="updateThingSelection(thing, $event)" />
            <img [src]="thing.image" /> {{ thing.name }}
        </label>
        <a href="javascript: void(0)" (click)="selectThing(thing)" *ngIf="! isMultiSelectMode">
            <img [src]="thing.image" /> {{ thing.name }}
        </a>
    </div>
</template>

I'd really like to reuse portions of this without having to write a completely separate component and wire it all together, which would require a TypeScript file and a template. One method would be with local components, something like this:

<sub-component selector="thing-list" things="input">
    <div *ngFor="#thing of things">
        <label *ngIf="isMultiSelectMode">
            <input type="checkbox" (change)="updateThingSelection(thing, $event)"/>
            <img [src]="thing.image" /> {{ thing.name }}
        </label>
        <a href="javascript: void(0)" (click)="selectThing(thing)" *ngIf="! isMultiSelectMode">
            <img [src]="thing.image" /> {{ thing.name }}
        </a>
    </div>
</sub-component>

<template [ngIf]="isCategoryGrouped">
    <div *ngFor="#categories of categories">
        <div>{{ categories.category.name }}</div>
        <thing-list things="categories.things" />
    </div>
</template>
<thing-list [ngIf]="! isCategoryGrouped" things="things" />

I realize the above is a rough sketch and probably wouldn't work as is, but the apparent inability to reuse portions of the view like this is unfortunate. This sort of thing is quite simple in React, if I understand correctly.

I'm curious about elegant ways others have solved the reuse-of-portions-of-view without going so far as to write a new component (which our designers would then need to know about and style, etc...). Thanks.

Answer 1

If your sections are identical in structure, just different in data, you could come up with a more generic model. Instead of referring to category and thing directly, map them into a generic object that you populate in a service before it gets to the view.

<div *ngFor="#item of items">
        ---
</div>

Here items would either be populated from things or categories.

You can then call it like so

<component [items]="fromThings"></component>
<component [items]="fromCategories"></component>

You are basically normalizing the view by not depending on the actual objects directly.

Answer 2

You can also use *ngFor with [ngForTemplate] or the upcoming NgInsert (name will be changed) to make parts of your template reusable.