angular-block-ui

An AngularJS module that allows you to block user interaction on AJAX requests. Blocking is done automatically for each http request and/or manually via an injectable service.

Dependencies

Besides AngularJS (~1.2.4), none.

Demos

Live demos can be found on the block-ui website or by executing the website included in the GitHub project .

Breaking Changes

Version 0.2

1. Browser navigation block has been disabled by default. This behaviour can be re-enabled by setting blockBrowserNavigation to true.
2. The preventRouting configuration property has been removed.

Version 0.1

1. The blockUIConfig is no longer a provider instance but a plain simple javascript object.
2. The markup for the block-ui element has been simplified.

Installation

Either copy the contents of the dist directory of the Github project or install with bower from the command line (recommended):

bower install angular-block-ui

Include both the JS and CSS file in your html:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="path-to-block-ui/angular-block-ui.min.css"/>
<!-- After AngularJS -->
<script src="path-to-block-ui/angular-block-ui.min.js"></script>

Create a dependency on blockUI in your main Angular module:

angular.module('myApp', ['blockUI'])

Usage

By default the module will block the user interface on each pending request made from the browser. This behaviour can be modified in the configuration.

It's also possible to do the blocking manually. The blockUI module exposes a service by the same name. Access to the service is gained by injecting it into your controller or directive:

angular.module('myApp').controller('MyController', function($scope, blockUI) {
  // A function called from user interface, which performs an async operation.
  $scope.onSave = function(item) {

    // Block the user interface
    blockUI.start();

    // Perform the async operation    
    item.$save(function() {
  
      // Unblock the user interface
      blockUI.stop();
      
    });
  };
});

Non-angular events

Note that whenever you're starting or stopping a block in an event outside of AngularJS you'll need to wrap this inside a $apply call to make AngularJS aware of changes on the scope.

var button = document.getElementById('clickMe');
button.addEventListener('click', buttonClicked);

function buttonClicked ()  {
  // Event called without the knowledge of angular
  $scope.$apply(function()  {
    blockUI.stop();
  });
}

BlockUI service methods

start

The start method will start the user interface block. Because multiple user interface elements can request a user interface block at the same time, the service keeps track of the number of start calls. Each call to start() will increase the count and every call to stop() will decrease the value. Whenever the count reaches 0 the block will end.

Note: By default the block is immediately active after calling this method, but to prevent trashing the user interface each time a button is pressed, the block is visible after a short delay. This behaviour can be modified in the configuration.

Arguments:

• messageOrOptions | (string or object) | Either supply the message (string) to be show in the overlay or specify an object (see below) that will be merged/extended into the block ui instance state. If no argument is specified the default text message from the configuration is used.

blockUI.start('My loading message ...'); // Start the block with the custom text message

blockUI.start({
  message: 'My loading message',  // Text message to display
  myProperty: 'My value'          // Any custom property that should be available in the template.
                                  // See the template configuration for more info.
});

stop

This will decrease the block count. The block will end if the count is 0.

reset

The reset will force an unblock by setting the block count to 0.

message

Allows the message shown in the overlay to be updated while to block is active.

done

Queues a callback function to be called when the block has finished. This can be useful whenever you wish to redirect the user to a different location while there are still pending AJAX requests.

Arguments:

• callback (function) The callback function to queue.

isBlocking

Returns whether currently a block is shown for the instance or not.

Blocking individual elements

Instead of blocking the whole page, it's also possible to block individual elements. Just like the main blockUI service, this can be done either manually or automatically. Elements can be made block ui enabled by wrapping them in a block-ui element.

Manual blocking

<div block-ui="myBlockUI">
  <p> ... I'm blockable ... </p>
</div>

The block-ui directive takes an optional value, which can be used to get an instance of the associated blockUI service.

// Get the reference to the block service.
var myBlockUI = blockUI.instances.get('myBlockUI');

// Start blocking the element.
myBlockUI.start();

$timeout(function() {
  // Stop the block after some async operation.
  myBlockUI.stop();
}, 1000);

Automatic blocking

Automatic blocking elements can be done by providing the block-ui directive a block-ui-pattern attribute. This attribute should contain a valid regular expression, which indicates the requests that are associated with the specific element.

<!-- Initiated the UI block whenever a request to '/api/quote' is performed -->
<div block-ui block-ui-pattern="/^\/api\/quote($|\/).*/"></div>
  <p> ... I'm blockable ... </p>
</div>

BlockUI module configuration

The configuration of the BlockUI module can be modified via the blockUIConfig during the config phase of your Angular application:

angular.module('myApp').config(function(blockUIConfig) {
  
  // Change the default overlay message
  blockUIConfig.message = 'Please stop clicking!';
  
  // Change the default delay to 100ms before the blocking is visible
  blockUIConfig.delay = 100;
  
});

Properties

message

Changes the default message to be used when no message has been provided to the start method of the service. Default value is 'Loading ...'.

// Change the default overlay message
blockUIConfig.message = 'Please wait';

delay

Specifies the amount in milliseconds before the block is visible to the user. By delaying a visible block your application will appear more responsive. The default value is 250.

// Change the default delay to 100ms before the blocking is visible ...
blockUIConfig.delay = 100;

// ... or completely remove the delay
blockUIConfig.delay = 0;

template

Specifies a custom template to use as the overlay.

// Provide a custom template to use
blockUIConfig.template = '<pre><code>{{ state | json }}</code></pre>';

Any custom properties provided to the start method of the blockUI instance can be accessed via the state object. For example:

// Start a block with custom property values
blockUI.start({ myProperty: 'My value' });

// Display the property value in the custom template.
blockUIConfig.template = '<div>{{ state.myProperty }}</div>';

templateUrl

Specifies a url to retrieve the template from. The current release only works with pre-cached templates, which means that this url should be known in the $templateCache service of Angular. If you're using the grunt with html2js or angular-templates, which I highly recommend, you're already set.

// Provide the custom template via a url
blockUIConfig.templateUrl = 'my-templates/block-ui-overlay.html';

autoBlock

By default the BlockUI module will start a block whenever the Angular $http service has an pending request. If you don't want this behaviour and want to do all the blocking manually you can change this value to false.

// Disable automatically blocking of the user interface
blockUIConfig.autoBlock = false;

resetOnException

By default the BlockUI module will reset the block count and hide the overlay whenever an exception has occurred. You can set this value to false if you don't want this behaviour.

// Disable clearing block whenever an exception has occurred
blockUIConfig.resetOnException = false;

requestFilter

Allows you to specify a filter function to exclude certain ajax requests from blocking the user interface. The function is passed the Angular request config object. The blockUI service will ignore requests when the function returns false.

// Tell the blockUI service to ignore certain requests
blockUIConfig.requestFilter = function(config) {
  // If the request starts with '/api/quote' ...
  if(config.url.match(/^\/api\/quote($|\/).*/)) {
    return false; // ... don't block it.
  }
};

If the filter function returns a string it will be passed as the message argument to the start method of the service.

// Change the displayed message based on the http verbs being used.    
blockUIConfig.requestFilter = function(config) {

  var message;

  switch(config.method) {
    case 'GET':
      message = 'Getting ...';
      break;
      
    case 'POST':
      message = 'Posting ...';
      break;

    case 'DELETE':
      message = 'Deleting ...';
      break;

    case 'PUT':
      message = 'Putting ...';
      break;
  };
  
  return message;
  
};

autoInjectBodyBlock

When the module is started it will inject the main block element by adding the block-ui directive to the body element.

<body block-ui="main">
</body>

This behaviour can be disabled if there no need for any fullscreen blocking or if there's more control required. For instance when your ng-app directive is a child element of the body element it is impossible for the blockUI resolve the main instance. In such a case the auto injection of the main block scope should be disabled and the main block element should be relocated.

// Disable auto body block
blockUIConfig.autoInjectBodyBlock = false;

<div ng-app="myApp">
	<div block-ui="main" class="block-ui-main"></div>
</div>

More information and an example can be found in this plunker and this plunker.

cssClass

A string containing the default css classes, separated by spaces, that should be applied to each block-ui element. The default value is 'block-ui block-ui-anim-fade'.

If this needs to be overridden for a certain element; set the desired classes on the element including the block-ui class. This way the directive will not apply the configured classes to the element.

blockUIConfig.cssClass = 'block-ui my-custom-class'; // Apply these classes to al block-ui elements

blockBrowserNavigation

Whenever a user interface block is active, because the single page application is still waiting for a response from the backend server, the user can still navigate away using the back and forward buttons of the browser. Callbacks registered to handle the responses from the server will be executed even if a different view/controller is currently active.

By setting the blockBrowserNavigation property to true the angular-block-ui module will prevent navigation while a fullscreen block is active. Programatic location changes via the $location service are still allowed however. A demonstration of this behaviour can be found here.

The navigation block is disabled by default.

// Enable browser navigation blocking
blockUIConfig.blockBrowserNavigation = true;