Access a DOM element in Aurelia

Question

How would you go about accessing a DOM element in Aurelia? This is a broad and general question, but I have a feeling there are one or two preferred ways to do this. I have

Answer 1

Just as another point I came across when trying to use this for myself, the ref variable isn't available during construction, and this isn't clear in the documentation. You can begin to reference the element as mentioned above (http://aurelia.io/hub.html#/doc/article/aurelia/binding/latest/binding-basics/5) anytime during or after the attached method is called.

Answer 2

Use binding system's ref capability. See the docs http://aurelia.io/docs/binding/basics#referencing-elements

Answer 3

As Rob suggested, use ref. For your example:

view

<form ref="myForm"></form>

viewModel

class ViewModel { 

    canDeactivate() {
        var form = this.myForm;
        // do stuffs
    }
}

For more information on the ref attribute, see here: http://aurelia.io/docs/binding/basics#function-references

Answer 4

Another option; if your view-model is exposed as a @customElement, its DOM element can be injected in the constructor:

@customElement
@inject(Element)
export class MyCustomElement {
    constrctor(element) {
        logger.info(element) // ==> <my-custom-element></my-custom-element>
    }
}

Answer 5

Typescript version

@transient()
@autoinject
export class ViewModel { 
    myForm: any;
    canDeactivate() {
        var form = this.myForm;
        // do stuffs
    }
}