angularjs - Set element focus in angular way

Question

After looking for examples of how set focus elements with angular, I saw that most of them use some variable to watch for then set focus, and most of them use one different variable for each field they want to set focus. In a form, with a lot of fields, that implies in a lot of different variables.

With jquery way in mind, but wanting to do that in angular way, I made a solution that we set focus in any function using the element's id, so, as I am very new in angular, I'd like to get some opinions if that way is right, have problems, whatever, anything that could help me do this the better way in angular.

Basically, I create a directive that watch a scope value defined by the user with directive, or the default's focusElement, and when that value is the same as the element's id, that element set focus itself.

angular.module('appnamehere')
  .directive('myFocus', function () {
    return {
      restrict: 'A',
      link: function postLink(scope, element, attrs) {
        if (attrs.myFocus == "") {
          attrs.myFocus = "focusElement";
        }
        scope.$watch(attrs.myFocus, function(value) {
          if(value == attrs.id) {
            element[0].focus();
          }
        });
        element.on("blur", function() {
          scope[attrs.myFocus] = "";
          scope.$apply();
        })        
      }
    };
  });

An input that needs to get focus by some reason, will do this way

<input my-focus id="input1" type="text" />

Here any element to set focus:

<a href="" ng-click="clickButton()" >Set focus</a>

And the example function that set focus:

$scope.clickButton = function() {
    $scope.focusElement = "input1";
}

Is that a good solution in angular? Does it have problems that with my poor experience I don't see yet?

Answer 1

The problem with your solution is that it does not work well when tied down to other directives that creates a new scope, e.g. ng-repeat. A better solution would be to simply create a service function that enables you to focus elements imperatively within your controllers or to focus elements declaratively in the html.

DEMO

JAVASCRIPT

Service

 .factory('focus', function($timeout, $window) {
    return function(id) {
      // timeout makes sure that it is invoked after any other event has been triggered.
      // e.g. click events that need to run before the focus or
      // inputs elements that are in a disabled state but are enabled when those events
      // are triggered.
      $timeout(function() {
        var element = $window.document.getElementById(id);
        if(element)
          element.focus();
      });
    };
  });

Directive

  .directive('eventFocus', function(focus) {
    return function(scope, elem, attr) {
      elem.on(attr.eventFocus, function() {
        focus(attr.eventFocusId);
      });

      // Removes bound events in the element itself
      // when the scope is destroyed
      scope.$on('$destroy', function() {
        elem.off(attr.eventFocus);
      });
    };
  });

Controller

.controller('Ctrl', function($scope, focus) {
    $scope.doSomething = function() {
      // do something awesome
      focus('email');
    };
  });

HTML

<input type="email" id="email" class="form-control">
<button event-focus="click" event-focus-id="email">Declarative Focus</button>
<button ng-click="doSomething()">Imperative Focus</button>