How to use jQuery with Angular?

Question

Can anyone tell me, how to use jQuery with Angular?

class MyComponent {
    constructor() {
        // how to query the DOM element from here?
    }
}

I'm aware there are workarounds like manipulating the class or id of the DOM element upfront, but I'm hoping for a cleaner way of doing it.

Answer 1

Using jQuery from Angular2 is a breeze compared to ng1. If you are using TypeScript you could first reference jQuery typescript definition.

tsd install jquery --save
or
typings install dt~jquery --global --save

TypescriptDefinitions are not required since you could just use any as the type for $ or jQuery

In your angular component you should reference a DOM element from the template using @ViewChild() After the view has been initialized you can use the nativeElement property of this object and pass to jQuery.

Declaring $ (or jQuery) as JQueryStatic will give you a typed reference to jQuery.

import {bootstrap}    from '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic';
import {Component, ViewChild, ElementRef, AfterViewInit} from '@angular/core';
declare var $:JQueryStatic;

@Component({
    selector: 'ng-chosen',
    template: `<select #selectElem>
        <option *ngFor="#item of items" [value]="item" [selected]="item === selectedValue">{{item}} option</option>
        </select>
        <h4> {{selectedValue}}</h4>`
})
export class NgChosenComponent implements AfterViewInit {
    @ViewChild('selectElem') el:ElementRef;
    items = ['First', 'Second', 'Third'];
    selectedValue = 'Second';

    ngAfterViewInit() {
        $(this.el.nativeElement)
            .chosen()
            .on('change', (e, args) => {
                this.selectedValue = args.selected;
            });
    }
}

bootstrap(NgChosenComponent);

This example is available on plunker: http://plnkr.co/edit/Nq9LnK?p=preview

tslint will complain about chosen not being a property on $, to fix this you can add a definition to the JQuery interface in your custom *.d.ts file

interface JQuery {
    chosen(options?:any):JQuery;
}