[javascript] Conditional logic in AngularJS template

Angular 1.1.5 introduced the ng-if directive. That's the best solution for this particular problem. If you are using an older version of Angular, consider using angular-ui's ui-if directive.

If you arrived here looking for answers to the general question of "conditional logic in templates" also consider:

• 1.1.5 also introduced a ternary operator
• ng-switch can be used to conditionally add/remove elements from the DOM
• see also How do I conditionally apply CSS styles in AngularJS?

Original answer:

Here is a not-so-great "ng-if" directive:

myApp.directive('ngIf', function() {
    return {
        link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
            if(scope.$eval(attrs.ngIf)) {
                // remove '<div ng-if...></div>'
                element.replaceWith(element.children())
            } else {
                element.replaceWith(' ')
            }
        }
    }
});

that allows for this HTML syntax:

<div ng-repeat="message in data.messages" ng-class="message.type">
   <hr>
   <div ng-if="showFrom(message)">
       <div>From: {{message.from.name}}</div>
   </div>    
   <div ng-if="showCreatedBy(message)">
      <div>Created by: {{message.createdBy.name}}</div>
   </div>    
   <div ng-if="showTo(message)">
      <div>To: {{message.to.name}}</div>
   </div>    
</div>

Fiddle.

replaceWith() is used to remove unneeded content from the DOM.

Also, as I mentioned on Google+, ng-style can probably be used to conditionally load background images, should you want to use ng-show instead of a custom directive. (For the benefit of other readers, Jon stated on Google+: "both methods use ng-show which I'm trying to avoid because it uses display:none and leaves extra markup in the DOM. This is a particular problem in this scenario because the hidden element will have a background image which will still be loaded in most browsers.").
See also How do I conditionally apply CSS styles in AngularJS?

The angular-ui ui-if directive watches for changes to the if condition/expression. Mine doesn't. So, while my simple implementation will update the view correctly if the model changes such that it only affects the template output, it won't update the view correctly if the condition/expression answer changes.

E.g., if the value of a from.name changes in the model, the view will update. But if you delete $scope.data.messages[0].from, the from name will be removed from the view, but the template will not be removed from the view because the if-condition/expression is not being watched.