Angularjs – $apply already in progress error

If you don't want to put CSS class names into Controller like I do, here is an old trick that I use since pre-v1 days. We can write an expression that evaluates directly to a class name selected, no custom directives are necessary:

ng:class="{true:'selected', false:''}[$index==selectedIndex]"

Please note the old syntax with colon.

There is also a new better way of applying classes conditionally, like:

ng-class="{selected: $index==selectedIndex}"

Angular now supports expressions that return an object. Each property (name) of this object is now considered as a class name and is applied depending on its value.

However these ways are not functionally equal. Here is an example:

ng-class="{admin:'enabled', moderator:'disabled', '':'hidden'}[user.role]"

We could therefore reuse existing CSS classes by basically mapping a model property to a class name and at the same time keep CSS classes out of Controller code.

From a recent discussion with the Angular guys on this very topic: For future-proofing reasons, you should not use $$phase

When pressed for the "right" way to do it, the answer is currently

$timeout(function() {
  // anything you want can go here and will safely be run on the next digest.
})

I recently ran into this when writing angular services to wrap the facebook, google, and twitter APIs which, to varying degrees, have callbacks handed in.

Here's an example from within a service. (For the sake of brevity, the rest of the service -- that set up variables, injected $timeout etc. -- has been left off.)

window.gapi.client.load('oauth2', 'v2', function() {
    var request = window.gapi.client.oauth2.userinfo.get();
    request.execute(function(response) {
        // This happens outside of angular land, so wrap it in a timeout 
        // with an implied apply and blammo, we're in action.
        $timeout(function() {
            if(typeof(response['error']) !== 'undefined'){
                // If the google api sent us an error, reject the promise.
                deferred.reject(response);
            }else{
                // Resolve the promise with the whole response if ok.
                deferred.resolve(response);
            }
        });
    });
});

Note that the delay argument for $timeout is optional and will default to 0 if left unset ($timeout calls $browser.defer which defaults to 0 if delay isn't set)

A little non-intuitive, but that's the answer from the guys writing Angular, so it's good enough for me!