[events] trigger click event from angularjs directive

How can i trigger a click event for li elements specifying their index from the angularjs directive? I have tried using $first for triggering click for the first element, but its not working.

Thanks for any help.

This is more the Angular way to do it: http://plnkr.co/edit/xYNX47EsYvl4aRuGZmvo?p=preview

1. I added $scope.selectedItem that gets you past your first problem (defaulting the image)
2. I added $scope.setSelectedItem and called it in ng-click. Your final requirements may be different, but using a directive to bind click and change src was overkill, since most of it can be handled with template
3. Notice use of ngSrc to avoid errant server calls on initial load
4. You'll need to adjust some styles to get the image positioned right in the div. If you really need to use background-image, then you'll need a directive like ngSrc that defers setting the background-image style until after real data has loaded.

This is how I was able to trigger a button click when the page loads.

<li ng-repeat="a in array">
  <a class="button" id="btn" ng-click="function(a)" index="$index" on-load-clicker>
    {{a.name}}
  </a>
</li>

A simple directive that takes the index from the ng-repeat and uses a condition to call the first button in the index and click it when the page loads.

angular
    .module("myApp")
        .directive('onLoadClicker', function ($timeout) {
            return {
                restrict: 'A',
                scope: {
                    index: '=index'
                },
                link: function($scope, iElm) {
                    if ($scope.index == 0) {
                        $timeout(function() {

                            iElm.triggerHandler('click');

                        }, 0);
                    }
                }
            };
        });

This was the only way I was able to even trigger an auto click programmatically in the first place. angular.element(document.querySelector('#btn')).click(); Did not work from the controller so making this simple directive seems most effective if you are trying to run a click on page load and you can specify which button to click by passing in the index. I got help through this stack-overflow answer from another post reference: https://stackoverflow.com/a/26495541/4684183 onLoadClicker Directive.

This is an extension to Langdon's answer with a directive approach to the problem. If you're going to have multiple galleries on the page this may be one way to go about it without much fuss.

Usage:

<gallery images="items"></gallery>
<gallery images="cats"></gallery>

See it working here