JavaScript for Line of Business Applications

In this article, we will explore how to use AngularJS to Post Data and use AngularJS Custom Directives in an ASP.NET MVC application.

So to post data, we need to simply call the save function on our resource instance. However there is a slight gotcha. The $resource object expects all the functions to post to the same URL. In MVC terms, this means posting to the same action method with different HttpGet/HttpPost/HttpPut etc attributes.

In our code, currently the HomeController uses GetTweets method to get the Data. Now Posting to a URL called GetTweets is semantically icky. So let’s update the Controller method to be called justTweet. So we will do GET, POST, PUT etc. requests to the url /Home/Tweet.

Today we’ll see how to use a feature called Directives in Angular JS. Directives allow you to encapsulate custom behavior in an HTML element, attribute, classes and even comments. For example, the ng-app attribute that we use to define the scope of our Angular App is in fact a Directive, because there are no HTML5 attributes by that name! It’s Angular who interprets the attribute at runtime. 

Apart from helping add custom attributes, directives can also be used to create the server side equivalent of ‘tag-libraries’ on the client. Those familiar with WebForms or JSP development will remember you could create server side components with custom Tags like <asp:GridView>…</asp:GridView> where the GridView rendering logic was encapsulated in a server component. Well, Directives allow you build such components, but on the client.