AngularJS conditional ng-disabled does not re-enable

Question

Given a conditionally disabled text input field using ng-disabled="truthy_scope_variable", AngularJS disables the field the first time the scope variable is falsified, but does not enable it on subsequent changes. As a result, the field remains disabled. I can only assume something went wrong, but the Console log is empty.

The truthy scope variable is tied to a radio button model and I can even $watch it change, but the input field's ng-disabled is not working as expected. I have manually tried calling $apply, but it looks like Angular is triggering DOM changes.

In controller:

$scope.new_account = true 

Radio buttons:

<input type="radio" ng-model="new_account" name="register"  id="radio_new_account" value="true" />  <input type="radio" ng-model="new_account" name="register"  id="radio_existing_account" value="false" /> 

Conditionally disabled input field:

<input type="password" ng-disabled="new_account" id="login-password"  name="password" ng-model="password" /> 

If I initially set $scope.new_account = false, the field is rendered disabled, but never re-enabled. Why is this happening?

Answer 1

That's because HTML attributes are always strings, so in your example ngDisabled is evaluating a string in both cases ("true" or "false").

To remedy, you should compare the model against the string value in ngDisabled:

ng-disabled="new_account == 'false'" 

... or use a checkbox, to get the actual boolean value:

<input type="checkbox" ng-model="existing_account" name="register" id="checkbox_new_account" /> <label for="checkbox_new_account">Is Existing Account</label>  Password: <input type="password" ng-disabled="existing_account" name="password" ng-model="password" /> 

Here's a PLNKR with both solutions.

Answer 2

There is an alternative solution available just use

ng-value

 <input type="radio" ng-model="new_account" name="register"  id="radio_new_account" ng-value="true" />  <input type="radio" ng-model="new_account" name="register"  id="radio_existing_account" ng-value="false" />       <input type="password" ng-disabled="new_account" id="login-password"  name="password" ng-model="password" />