Good way to dynamically open / close a popover (or tooltip) using angular, based on expression?

Question

I have a form that is wired into angular, using it for validation. I am able to display error messages using ng-show directives like so:

<span ng-show="t3.f.needsAttention(f.fieldName)" ng-cloak>
    <span ng-show="f.fieldName.$error.required && !f.fieldName.$viewValue">
        This field is required.
    </span>
</span>

.. where f is the form, and t3 comes from a custom directive on the form which detects whether a submission was attempted, and contains functions for checking the validity of fields.

What I am trying to accomplish is to display validation message(s) inside a popover instead. Either bootstrap's native popover, or the popover from UI Bootstrap, I have both loaded. I may also consider AngularStrap if it is easier to do it using that lib.

What I'm struggling with right now is the nature of popovers in general -- they autodisplay based on user events like click, mouseenter, blur, etc. What I want to do is show & hide the popover(s) based on the same functions in the ng-show attributes above. So that when the expression returns false hide it, and when it returns true, show it.

I know bootstrap has the .popover('show') for this, but I'm not supposed to tell angular anything about the dom, so I'm not sure how I would get access to $(element).popover() if doing this in a custom form controller function. Am I missing something?

Update

The solution mentioned in the duplicate vote still only shows the popover on mouseenter. I want to force it to display, as if doing $('#popover_id').popover('show').

Answer 1

You can also build your own extended triggers. This will apply to both Tooltip and Popover.

First extend the Tooltip triggers as follows:

// define additional triggers on Tooltip and Popover
app.config(['$tooltipProvider', function($tooltipProvider){
    $tooltipProvider.setTriggers({
        'show': 'hide'
    });
}]);

Then define the trigger on the HTML tag like this:

<div id="RegisterHelp" popover-trigger="show" popover-placement="left" popover="{{ 'Login or register here'}}">

And now you can call hide and show from JavaScript, this is a show in 3 seconds.

$("#RegisterHelp").trigger('show');
//Close the info again
$timeout(function () {
    $("#RegisterHelp").trigger('hide');
}, 3000);

Answer 2

As it turns out, it's not very difficult to decorate either the ui-bootstrap tooltip or the popover with a custom directive. This is written in typescript, but the javascript parts of it should be obvious. This single piece of code works to decorate either a tooltip or a popover:

'use strict';

module App.Directives.TooltipToggle {

    export interface DirectiveSettings {
        directiveName: string;
        directive: any[];
        directiveConfig?: any[];
    }

    export function directiveSettings(tooltipOrPopover = 'tooltip'): DirectiveSettings {

        var directiveName = tooltipOrPopover;

        // events to handle show & hide of the tooltip or popover
        var showEvent = 'show-' + directiveName;
        var hideEvent = 'hide-' + directiveName;

        // set up custom triggers
        var directiveConfig = ['$tooltipProvider', ($tooltipProvider: ng.ui.bootstrap.ITooltipProvider): void => {
            var trigger = {};
            trigger[showEvent] = hideEvent;
            $tooltipProvider.setTriggers(trigger);
        }];

        var directiveFactory = (): any[] => {
            return ['$timeout', ($timeout: ng.ITimeoutService): ng.IDirective => {
                var d: ng.IDirective = {
                    name: directiveName,
                    restrict: 'A',
                    link: (scope: ng.IScope, element: JQuery, attr: ng.IAttributes) => {

                        if (angular.isUndefined(attr[directiveName + 'Toggle'])) return;

                        // set the trigger to the custom show trigger
                        attr[directiveName + 'Trigger'] = showEvent;

                        // redraw the popover when responsive UI moves its source
                        var redrawPromise: ng.IPromise<void>;
                        $(window).on('resize', (): void => {
                            if (redrawPromise) $timeout.cancel(redrawPromise);
                            redrawPromise = $timeout((): void => {
                                if (!scope['tt_isOpen']) return;
                                element.triggerHandler(hideEvent);
                                element.triggerHandler(showEvent);

                            }, 100);
                        });

                        scope.$watch(attr[directiveName + 'Toggle'], (value: boolean): void => {
                            if (value && !scope['tt_isOpen']) {
                                // tooltip provider will call scope.$apply, so need to get out of this digest cycle first
                                $timeout((): void => {
                                    element.triggerHandler(showEvent);
                                });
                            }
                            else if (!value && scope['tt_isOpen']) {
                                $timeout((): void => {
                                    element.triggerHandler(hideEvent);
                                });
                            }
                        });
                    }
                };
                return d;
            }];
        };

        var directive = directiveFactory();

        var directiveSettings: DirectiveSettings = {
            directiveName: directiveName,
            directive: directive,
            directiveConfig: directiveConfig,
        };

        return directiveSettings;
    }
}

With this single piece of code, you can set up programmatic hide and show of either a tooltip or popover like so:

var tooltipToggle = App.Directives.TooltipToggle.directiveSettings();
var popoverToggle = App.Directives.TooltipToggle.directiveSettings('popover');
var myModule = angular.module('my-mod', ['ui.bootstrap.popover', 'ui.bootstrap.tpls'])
    .directive(tooltipToggle.directiveName, tooltipToggle.directive)
        .config(tooltipToggle.directiveConfig)
    .directive(popoverToggle.directiveName, popoverToggle.directive)
        .config(popoverToggle.directiveConfig);

Usage:

<span tooltip="This field is required."
    tooltip-toggle="formName.fieldName.$error.required"
    tooltip-animation="false" tooltip-placement="right"></span>

or

<span popover="This field is required."
    popover-toggle="formName.fieldName.$error.required"
    popover-animation="false" popover-placement="right"></span>

So we are reusing everything else that comes with the ui-bootstrap tooltip or popover, and only implementing the -toggle attribute. The decorative directive watches that attribute, and fires custom events to show or hide, which are then handled by the ui-bootstrap tooltip provider.

Update:

Since this answer seems to be helping others, here is the code written as javascript (the above typescript more or less compiles to this javascript):

'use strict';

function directiveSettings(tooltipOrPopover) {

    if (typeof tooltipOrPopover === "undefined") {
        tooltipOrPopover = 'tooltip';
    }

    var directiveName = tooltipOrPopover;

    // events to handle show & hide of the tooltip or popover
    var showEvent = 'show-' + directiveName;
    var hideEvent = 'hide-' + directiveName;

    // set up custom triggers
    var directiveConfig = ['$tooltipProvider', function ($tooltipProvider) {
        var trigger = {};
        trigger[showEvent] = hideEvent;
        $tooltipProvider.setTriggers(trigger);
    }];

    var directiveFactory = function() {
        return ['$timeout', function($timeout) {
            var d = {
                name: directiveName,
                restrict: 'A',
                link: function(scope, element, attr) {
                    if (angular.isUndefined(attr[directiveName + 'Toggle']))
                        return;

                    // set the trigger to the custom show trigger
                    attr[directiveName + 'Trigger'] = showEvent;

                    // redraw the popover when responsive UI moves its source
                    var redrawPromise;
                    $(window).on('resize', function() {
                        if (redrawPromise) $timeout.cancel(redrawPromise);
                        redrawPromise = $timeout(function() {
                            if (!scope['tt_isOpen']) return;
                            element.triggerHandler(hideEvent);
                            element.triggerHandler(showEvent);

                        }, 100);
                    });

                    scope.$watch(attr[directiveName + 'Toggle'], function(value) {
                        if (value && !scope['tt_isOpen']) {
                            // tooltip provider will call scope.$apply, so need to get out of this digest cycle first
                            $timeout(function() {
                                element.triggerHandler(showEvent);
                            });
                        }
                        else if (!value && scope['tt_isOpen']) {
                            $timeout(function() {
                                element.triggerHandler(hideEvent);
                            });
                        }
                    });
                }
            };
            return d;
        }];
    };

    var directive = directiveFactory();

    var directiveSettings = {
        directiveName: directiveName,
        directive: directive,
        directiveConfig: directiveConfig,
    };

    return directiveSettings;
}

Answer 3

For ui.bootstrap 0.13.4 and newer:

A new parameter (popover-is-open) was introduced to control popovers in the official ui.bootstrap repo. This is how you use it in the latest version:

<a uib-popover="Hello world!" popover-is-open="isOpen" ng-click="isOpen = !isOpen">
   Click me to show the popover!
</a>

For ui.bootstrap 0.13.3 and older:

I just published a small directive that adds more control over popovers on GitHub:
https://github.com/Elijen/angular-popover-toggle

You can use a scope variable to show/hide the popover using popover-toggle="variable" directive like this:

<span popover="Hello world!" popover-toggle="isOpen">
   Popover here
</span>

Here is a demo Plunkr:
http://plnkr.co/edit/QeQqqEJAu1dCuDtSvomD?p=preview

Answer 4

My approach:

• Track the state of the popover in the model
• Change this state per element using the appropriate directives.

The idea being to leave the DOM manipulation to the directives.

I have put together a fiddle that I hope gives a better explain, but you'll find much more sophisticated solutions in UI Bootstrap which you mentioned.

jsfiddle

Markup:

<div ng-repeat="element in elements" class="element">

    <!-- Only want to show a popup if the element has an error and is being hovered -->
    <div class="popover" ng-show="element.hovered && element.error" ng-style>Popover</div>

    <div class="popoverable" ng-mouseEnter="popoverShow(element)" ng-mouseLeave="popoverHide(element)">
        {{ element.name }}
    </div>

</div>

JS:

function DemoCtrl($scope)
{

    $scope.elements = [
        {name: 'Element1 (Error)', error: true, hovered: false},
        {name: 'Element2 (no error)', error: false, hovered: false},
        {name: 'Element3 (Error)', error: true, hovered: false},
        {name: 'Element4 (no error)', error: false, hovered: false},
        {name: 'Element5 (Error)', error: true, hovered: false},
    ];

    $scope.popoverShow = function(element)
    {
        element.hovered = true;
    }

    $scope.popoverHide = function(element)
    {
        element.hovered = false
    }

}