How can I render an Angular2 component to a string?

Question

I would like to be able to use the Angular2 template syntax when building a Google Maps InfoWindow.

As far as I can tell, this means passing a a component as a template string to the content property in the InfoWindow constructor object.

If this is the case, I believe I need to stringify the component template. Is this correct (and possible)?

Here is an example of what I think I need to do:

// Component

import {Component} from 'angular2/core';
import {Thing} from './something/in/my/app/thing.model.ts';

@Component({
  selector: 'my-infowindow',
  template: `<p>This is an infowindow for {{ something.name }}</p>`
})
export class MyInfoWindowComponent {
    constructor(public something: Thing) {}
}


// Implementation

import {Thing} from './something/in/my/app/thing.model.ts';
import {MyInfoWindowComponent} from './path/to/infowindow.component';

/* { ...stuff... } */

private _buildInfoWindow(thing: Thing): google.maps.InfoWindow {
    return new google.maps.InfoWindow({
      /* v this is what I want v */
      content: new MyInfoWindowComponent(thing).toString() 
      /* ^ this is what I want ^ */
    });
}

Answer 1

Try passing the ElementRef angular.io/docs/ts/latest/api/core/ElementRef-class.html.

Or something with ViewChild:

https://angular.io/docs/ts/latest/api/core/ViewChild-var.html

I will not write the code for you, but the idea is something like this:

@Component({
  selector: 'my-infowindow',
  template: `<p #kiddo>This is an infowindow for {{ something.name }}</p>`
})
export class MyInfoWindowComponent {
    @ViewChild('kiddo') viewChild;
    constructor(public something: Thing) {}
    ngOnInit(){
        yourFunction(this.viewChild); //or viewChild.innerHtml or w/e works
    }
}