Why will my twitter widget not render if i change the view in angularjs?

Question

Hi and thanks for reading.

I have a angular app im making and ive stumbled on a problem. set up as so

index.html-

Answer 1

See this post: https://dev.twitter.com/discussions/890

I think that you may be able to get the widget to re-render by calling twttr.widgets.load().

If you find that this does not work, you will need to wrap this code into $timeout in your controller:

    controller('MyCtrl1', ['$scope', '$timeout', function ($scope, $timeout) {
            $timeout = twttr.widgets.load();
    }])

Answer 2

Basically it's what Loc Nguyen say.

So every time you recreate it you must remove it first.

var $ = function (id) { return document.getElementById(id); };
function loadTwitter() {!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");}

var twitter = $('twitter-wjs');
twitter.remove();
loadTwitter(); 

Answer 3

The problem is because when Angular switches views the script tag that was originally inserted is not removed from the document. I fixed this on my own website by removing the Twitter script element whenever my Twitter timeline directive is not in the view. See the code below with comments.

 function (scope, el, attrs) {
     el.bind('$destroy', function() {
         var twitterScriptEl = angular.element('#twitter-wjs');
         twitterScriptEl.remove();
     });

     // function provided by Twitter that's been formatted for easier reading
     function (d, s, id) {
         var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? 'http' : 'https';

         // If the Twitter script element is already on the document this will not get called. On a regular webpage that gets reloaded this isn't a problem. Angular views are loaded dynamically.
         if (!d.getElementById(id)) {
             js = d.createElement(s);
             js.id = id;
             js.src = p + "://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";
             js.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
         }
     }(document, "script", "twitter-wjs");        
 }

Answer 4

For those trying to load twttr.widgets.load() inside their controller, you will most likely get an error that twttr is not defined AT SOME POINT in your UX, because the async call to load the twitter script may not be completed by the time you controller instantiates and references twttr.

So I created this TwitterService

.factory('TwitterService', ['$timeout', function ($timeout) {
    return {
        load: function () {
        if (typeof twttr === 'undefined') {
            (function() {
                !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');
            })();
        } else {
            $timeout = twttr.widgets.load();
        };
        }
    }
}])

and then call TwitterService.load() inside the controllers that require your widgets. This worked pretty well. It basically just checks if the twttw object exists and if it does, just reload the script... otherwise just reload the script.

Not sure if this is the best implementation, but it seems like all other solutions have edge cases where it will throw an error. I have yet to find one with this alternative.

Answer 5

To build on Sir l33tname's answer:

In services declaration:

    angular.module('app.services', []).
      service('tweetWidgets', function() {

        this.loadAllWidgets = function() {

            /* widgets loader code you get when 
             * declaring you widget with Twitter 
             * this code is the same for all widgets 
             * so calling it once will reference whatever
             * widgets are active in the current ng-view */

            !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");
         };

         this.destroyAllWidgets = function() {
            var $ = function (id) { return document.getElementById(id); };
            var twitter = $('twitter-wjs');
            if (twitter != null)
                twitter.remove();
         };  
      });

Then in controller declarations:

    angular.module('app.controllers', []).
      controller('view_1_Controller', tweetWidgets) {

         // load them all
         tweetWidgets.loadAllWidgets();

     }).

       controller('view_2_Controller', tweetWidgets) {

          // now destroy them :>
          tweetWidgets.destroyAllWidgets();

     });

Now whenever you leave view #1 to go to view #2, your controller for view #2 will remove the widgets associated with view #1 and when you return to view #1 the widgets will be re-instatiated.

Answer 6

Answer by @b1r3k works without problems :

put this in your controller:

$timeout(function () { twttr.widgets.load(); }, 500);