"perfect-scrollbar" (jQuery plugin) isn't initialised properly when a its container is being filled with Angular.js

Question

On my page I programmatically generate a food/drinks menus from a json file with Angular.js. The problem is with the "perfect-scrollbar" used for scrolling the angular-generated content, which appears to require a scroll-wheel event to initialise on these menus. This makes it impossible to scroll on devices without a scroll-wheel. Apart from the angular-generated content other pages initialize perfect-scrollbar properly. This gave me a clue that the problem might lie with the interaction between jQuery world (perfect-scrollbar is a jQuery plugin) and Angular world.
The site is themockingbird.co.uk - navigate to the "Food" and "Drinks" to see the problem in action - can't scroll the content (the perfect-scrollbar won't appear) unless with the mouse scroll-wheel.
I've written this little directive:

mainMenuApp.directive('scrollBar', function(){
    return {
        restrict: 'C',
        template: '<div ng-transclude></div>',
        transclude: true,
        scope: {},
        link: function(scope, element, attrs){
            $(element).perfectScrollbar();
            //element.perfectScrollbar(); - doesn't work
            //angular.element(element).perfectScrollbar(); - doesn't work
        }
    }
});

to facilitate the "perfect-scrollbar" via angular for the two menus, but this did not solve the problem.
How can I make the perfect-scrollbar work perfectly with angular (pun intended :)?
I appreciate your time.
cheers
Jared

Answer 1

At the time your link function is executed, your menu-food.json and menu-drink.json are not arrived yet and perfectScrollbar needs an update at the time the data arrive, called with:

$(element).perfectScrollbar('update');

Since you have no architecture for handling the food and drinks lists as decoupled watchable values in a controller attached by your directive, you may simply broadcast an event from the root scope, listened by your directive link functions, thus updating the perfectScrollbar instance at the right moment.