Understanding AngularJS Templates

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05 Aug 2022

Beginner

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In Angular, templates are the views with the HTML enriched by Angular elements like directive and attributes. Templates are used to display the information from the model and controller that a user sees in his browser. An angular templates can have Directive, HTML markup, CSS, Filters, Expressions and Form controls.

A simple Angular Template

<html ng-app>
<body ng-controller="MyController">
 <input ng-model="name" value="dotnet-tricks.com">
 <br/>
 Input Value is : {{name}}
 <button ng-click="changeValue()">Click me!</button>
 <script src="angular.js">
 </body>
</html>

Types of Templates

There are two types of templates :

Static Templates

A static template is defined by using script tag. It must has an id attribute with a unique value and a type attribute with value text/ng-template. Also, a static template must be inside the scope of the ng-app directive otherwise it will be ignored by Angular.

 <script type="text/ng-template" id="person.html">
 {{person.name}} : {{person.address}}
 </script>

A static template can be rendered by using ng-include directive.

<div ng-include="'person.html'"></div>

Full Example of Static Template

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
 <title>AngularJS Static Templates</title>
 <script src="lib/angular.js"></script>
 <script>
 //defining module
 var app = angular.module('app', []);

 app.controller("myController", function ($scope) {
 $scope.person = { name: "Deepak Chauhan", address: "Delhi" };
 });

 app.controller("homeController", function ($scope) {
 $scope.persons = [{ name: "Deepak Chauhan", address: "Delhi" }, { name: "Shailendra Chauhan", address: "Noida" }, { name: "Kuldeep Chauhan", address: "Gurgaon" }]
 });

 </script>

</head>
<body ng-app="app">
 <h1>AngularJS : Static Templates</h1>
 <!--It should be the part of ng-app directive-->
 <script type="text/ng-template" id="person.html">
 {{person.name}} : {{person.address}}
 </script>

 <div ng-controller="myController">
 <h1>myController</h1>
 <!--Please not the single quotes around person.html. The value of the ng-include is an expression and person.html is a string value, so put single quotes around it.-->
 <div ng-include="'person.html'"></div>
 </div>

 <div ng-controller="homeController">
 <h1>homeController</h1>
 <div ng-repeat="person in persons" ng-include="'person.html'"></div>
 </div>
</body>
</html>

Dynamic Templates

A dynamic template is an html page which is compiled and rendered by Angular on demand. The above static template can be created as a HTML page within templates folder of your app like as:

person.html

{{person.name}} : {{person.address}}

A dynamic template can be rendered by using ng-include directive.

<div ng-include="'templates/person.html'"></div>

Full Example of Dynamic Template

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
 <title>AngularJS Dynamic Templates</title>
 <script src="lib/angular.js"></script>
 <script>
 //defining module
 var app = angular.module('app', []);

 app.controller("myController", function ($scope) {
 $scope.person = { name: "Deepak Chauhan", address: "Delhi" };
 });

 app.controller("homeController", function ($scope) {
 $scope.persons = [{ name: "Deepak Chauhan", address: "Delhi" }, { name: "Shailendra Chauhan", address: "Noida" }, { name: "Kuldeep Chauhan", address: "Gurgaon" }]
 });

 </script>

</head>
<body ng-app="app">
 <h1>AngularJS : Dynamic Templates</h1>
 <div ng-controller="myController">
 <h1>myController</h1>
 <!--Please not the single quotes around person.html. The value of the ng-include is an expression and person.html is a string value, so put single quotes around it.-->
 <div ng-include="'templates/person.html'"></div>
 </div>

 <div ng-controller="homeController">
 <h1>homeController</h1>
 <div ng-repeat="person in persons" ng-include="'templates/person.html'"></div>
 </div>
</body>
</html>

person.html

 {{person.name}} : {{person.address}}

Note

Always put the single quotes around the name of template with ng-include directive, since it accept an expression. Hence to indicate to Angular that template (person.html) is a string value you have to put single quotes around it's name.

What do you think?

I hope you will enjoy the AngularJS Templates while developing your app with AngularJS. I would like to have feedback from my blog readers. Your valuable feedback, question, or comments about this article are always welcome.