Global Events in Angular

Question

Is there no equivalent to $scope.emit() or $scope.broadcast() in Angular?

I know the EventEmitter functionality, but as far as I understand that will just emit an event to the parent HTML element.

What if I need to communicate between fx. siblings or between a component in the root of the DOM and an element nested several levels deep?

Answer 1

There is no equivalent to $scope.emit() or $scope.broadcast() from AngularJS. EventEmitter inside of a component comes close, but as you mentioned, it will only emit an event to the immediate parent component.

In Angular, there are other alternatives which I'll try to explain below.

@Input() bindings allows the application model to be connected in a directed object graph (root to leaves). The default behavior of a component's change detector strategy is to propagate all changes to an application model for all bindings from any connected component.

Aside: There are two types of models: View Models and Application Models. An application model is connected through @Input() bindings. A view model is a just a component property (not decorated with @Input()) which is bound in the component's template.

To answer your questions:

What if I need to communicate between sibling components?

1. Shared Application Model: Siblings can communicate through a shared application model (just like angular 1). For example, when one sibling makes a change to a model, the other sibling that has bindings to the same model is automatically updated.

2. Component Events: Child components can emit an event to the parent component using @Output() bindings. The parent component can handle the event, and manipulate the application model or it's own view model. Changes to the Application Model are automatically propagated to all components that directly or indirectly bind to the same model.

3. Service Events: Components can subscribe to service events. For example, two sibling components can subscribe to the same service event and respond by modifying their respective models. More on this below.

How can I communicate between a Root component and a component nested several levels deep?

1. Shared Application Model: The application model can be passed from the Root component down to deeply nested sub-components through @Input() bindings. Changes to a model from any component will automatically propagate to all components that share the same model.
2. Service Events: You can also move the EventEmitter to a shared service, which allows any component to inject the service and subscribe to the event. That way, a Root component can call a service method (typically mutating the model), which in turn emits an event. Several layers down, a grand-child component which has also injected the service and subscribed to the same event, can handle it. Any event handler that changes a shared Application Model, will automatically propagate to all components that depend on it. This is probably the closest equivalent to $scope.broadcast() from Angular 1. The next section describes this idea in more detail.

Example of an Observable Service that uses Service Events to Propagate Changes

Here is an example of an observable service that uses service events to propagate changes. When a TodoItem is added, the service emits an event notifying its component subscribers.

export class TodoItem {
    constructor(public name: string, public done: boolean) {
    }
}
export class TodoService {
    public itemAdded$: EventEmitter<TodoItem>;
    private todoList: TodoItem[] = [];

    constructor() {
        this.itemAdded$ = new EventEmitter();
    }

    public list(): TodoItem[] {
        return this.todoList;
    }

    public add(item: TodoItem): void {
        this.todoList.push(item);
        this.itemAdded$.emit(item);
    }
}

Here is how a root component would subscribe to the event:

export class RootComponent {
    private addedItem: TodoItem;
    constructor(todoService: TodoService) {
        todoService.itemAdded$.subscribe(item => this.onItemAdded(item));
    }

    private onItemAdded(item: TodoItem): void {
        // do something with added item
        this.addedItem = item;
    }
}

A child component nested several levels deep would subscribe to the event in the same way:

export class GrandChildComponent {
    private addedItem: TodoItem;
    constructor(todoService: TodoService) {
        todoService.itemAdded$.subscribe(item => this.onItemAdded(item));
    }

    private onItemAdded(item: TodoItem): void {
        // do something with added item
        this.addedItem = item;
    }
}

Here is the component that calls the service to trigger the event (it can reside anywhere in the component tree):

@Component({
    selector: 'todo-list',
    template: `
         <ul>
            <li *ngFor="#item of model"> {{ item.name }}
            </li>
         </ul>
        <br />
        Add Item <input type="text" #txt /> <button (click)="add(txt.value); txt.value='';">Add</button>
    `
})
export class TriggeringComponent{
    private model: TodoItem[];

    constructor(private todoService: TodoService) {
        this.model = todoService.list();
    }

    add(value: string) {
        this.todoService.add(new TodoItem(value, false));
    }
}

Reference: Change Detection in Angular