Integration with Angular

This tutorial will help you integrate Flexmonster with the Angular framework. It is based on angular.io quickstart. Flexmonster is fully compatible with the latest Angular 11 as well as earlier 4+ versions.

Prerequisites

To run a simple application you will need Node.js and npm. Get it here if it’s not already installed on your machine.

Open a terminal/console window and verify that you are running at least node v4.x.x and npm 3.x.x by running node -v and npm -v.

Then install the Angular CLI globally by running:

npm install -g @angular/cli

One more command-line interface tool needed is Flexmonster CLI, which is the most convenient way to work with Flexmonster. Install the CLI globally using npm:

npm install -g flexmonster-cli

Now a new flexmonster command is available in the console. Learn more about Flexmonster CLI and its commands in our documentation.

After that, choose one of the following options:

1. Run a sample Angular 5+ project from GitHub
2. Integrate Flexmonster into an Angular 5+ application
3. See the examples of Flexmonster usage in Angular
4. Integrate Flexmonser into an Angular 4 application

Run a sample Angular 5+ project from GitHub

Create the sample project with the following CLI command:

flexmonster create angular -r

The flexmonster create angular command will do the following:

• Download the .zip archive with the sample Angular project from GitHub.
• Automatically unpack the files in the current folder — as a result, the flexmonster-angular-project/ folder will appear in your working directory.

The -r option, which stands for --run, completes these tasks:

• Installs all the npm dependencies described in package.json.
• Compiles the application and runs it in the browser.

The application can be shut down manually with Ctrl+C.

Integrate Flexmonster into an Angular 5+ application

To integrate Flexmonster into an Angular 5+ app, follow these steps:

Step 1. If you don’t have an Angular CLI app, you can create it by running these commands in the console:

ng new PROJECT-NAME 
cd PROJECT-NAME 

Step 2. Install the Flexmonster Angular module by running this CLI command from the folder containing package.json :

flexmonster add ng-flexmonster

The add command will install the ng-flexmonster package to node_modules/ and add it as an npm dependency to package.json.

Step 3. Import FlexmonsterPivotModule into src/app/app.module.ts:

import { FlexmonsterPivotModule } from 'ng-flexmonster';

@NgModule({
  ...
  imports: [FlexmonsterPivotModule],
  ...
})

Step 4. Import CSS styles (e.g. in the styles.css):

@import "flexmonster/flexmonster.min.css"

Step 5. Import flexmonster and ng-flexmonster TypeScript modules (e.g. in the app.component.ts):

import * as Flexmonster from 'flexmonster';
import { FlexmonsterPivot } from 'ng-flexmonster';

Step 6. Insert fm-pivot directive where you need the pivot table (e.g. in the app.component.html):

<fm-pivot
  [report]="'https://cdn.flexmonster.com/reports/report.json'">
</fm-pivot> 

Step 7. Run your application from the console:

ng serve

To see the result open your browser on http://localhost:4200/.

If you want to integrate with charting libraries, we included all necessary type definitions for integration with Google Charts, FusionCharts, and Highcharts.

Examples

The sample Angular project with Flexmonster contains several usage examples. You can try them all on the project’s starting page.

This section gives a detailed description of each example:

• Adding the pivot table
• Calling events
• Using API calls
• Updating data
• Customizing the Toolbar
• Customizing the grid
• Integrating with Highcharts

Adding the pivot table

The first example demonstrates the basic usage of Flexmonster. In pivot-table-demo.component.html, see how the toolbar and report initialization parameters are specified in Angular.

Flexmonster has more initialization parameters. Have a look at all of them.

Calling events

This usage example is focused on Flexmonster events. It provides a toggle button for subscribing to all the events and unsubscribing from them. See how calling the events is implemented in the calling-events.component.ts file.

When Flexmonster is subscribed to the events, the log output displays:

• Which event was triggered.
• When the event was triggered.
• Details on that event.

See the full list of Flexmonster events in our documentation.

Using API calls

The Using API calls section is about customizing the component with API calls. Switch the toggle buttons to:

• Show the pie chart.
• Show the grid.
• Make the component read-only.
• Make the component interactive.

All the functionality is implemented in using-api-calls.component.ts.

See the full list of Flexmonster API calls.

Updating data

The Updating data section contains an example of data updating at runtime. The example uses the updateData() API call in the function to update the data. See the source code in the updating-data.component.ts file.

Customizing the Toolbar

Go to the Customizing the Toolbar section to see the example of Toolbar customization.

We use the beforetoolbarcreated event to invoke the customizeToolbar() function. As a result, a custom tab with a custom functionality is added.

The beforetoolbarcreated event is called in customizing-toolbar.component.html, and its handler can be found in the customizing-toolbar.component.ts file.

Learn more about customizing the Toolbar.

Customizing the grid

The Customizing the grid example demonstrates how the component can be customized.

Switch the toggle buttons to apply or remove customization. Custom grid styles are defined in customizeCellFunction() in the customizing-grid.component.ts file.

See our documentation to learn more about cell customizing.

Integrating with Highcharts

See an example of integration with Highcharts in the With Highcharts section.

Here are the main elements of this integration:

1. The Highcharts module and Flexmonster connector for Highcharts.
2. A container for Highcharts.
3. The reportcomplete event; when triggered, the function to draw the chart is invoked.
4. The drawChart() function; find it in the with-highcharts.component.ts file.

Integration with other charting libraries can be done in a similar way. Check out the integrations we provide.

Integrate Flexmonser into an Angular 4 application

To integrate Flexmonster into an Angular 4 project, we recommend using the FlexmonsterPivot module from GitHub. This module is also available on npm, but it can only be used with Angular 5+ versions due to the metadata files’ restriction.

Follow the steps below:

Step 1. If needed, uninstall the ng-flexmonster npm module:

npm uninstall ng-flexmonster

Step 2. Download the FlexmonsterPivot source code from GitHub and move it to the src/app/ folder.

Step 3. Install the flexmonster npm module:

npm install flexmonster 

Step 4. In the app.component.ts file, import FlexmonsterPivot like this:

import { FlexmonsterPivot } from './flexmonster.component'; 

Step 5. In the app.module.ts file, declare the FlexmonsterPivot module:

import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';

import { FlexmonsterPivot } from './flexmonster.component';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
    AppComponent, FlexmonsterPivot
  ],
  imports: [
    BrowserModule
  ],
  providers: [],
  bootstrap: [AppComponent]
}
export class AppModule { }

Step 6. Import Flexmonster styles in the src/styles.css file: 

@import "../node_modules/flexmonster/flexmonster.min.css"; 

After completing these steps, you can use Flexmonster in your Angular 4 application.

The fm-pivot directive and its attributes

The fm-pivot directive embeds the component into the HTML page. The name of each attribute of the fm-pivot directive is surrounded by square brackets. The value of each attribute can be of any type, including an Angular variable available in the current scope, but it must be surrounded by double quotes. Note that string values must be surrounded by single quotes within the double quotes, e.g. [report]="'https://cdn.flexmonster.com/reports/report.json'".

All attributes are equivalent to those which are passed to the new Flexmonster() API call. Check out the full list of available attributes.

Here is an example demonstrating how different attributes are specified:

<h1>Angular 4+/Flexmonster</h1>
<fm-pivot [componentFolder]="'https://cdn.flexmonster.com/'"
          [toolbar]="true"
          [width]="'100%'"
          [height]="500"
          [report]="'https://cdn.flexmonster.com/reports/report.json'"
          (reportcomplete)="onReportComplete()">
    Flexmonster will appear here
</fm-pivot> 

In the above example notice the following line:

(reportcomplete)="onReportComplete()" 

In Angular, events are specified in round brackets instead of square brackets. This line means that onReportComplete handles the reportcomplete event. Any other event handling can be specified the same way. Here is the full list of Flexmonster events.

What’s next?

You may be interested in the following articles:

• How to customize the Toolbar
• How to add localization
• How to customize appearance with CSS
• How to define a format for date and time
• How to set specific options common for all reports
• How to configure the way that data is exported