Can angular's ngTouch library be used to detect a long click (touch/hold/release in place) event?

Question

My AngularJS app needs to be able to detect both the start and stop of a touch event (without swiping). For example, I need to execute some logic when the touch begins (user presses down their finger and holds), and then execute different logic when the same touch ends (user removes their finger). I am looking at implementing ngTouch for this task, but the documentation for the ngTouch.ngClick directive only mentions firing the event on tap. The ngTouch.$swipe service can detect start and stop of the touch event, but only if the user actually swiped (moved their finger horizontally or vertically) while touching. Anyone have any ideas? Will I need to just write my own directive?

Answer 1

Update 11/25/14:

The monospaced angular-hammer library is outdated right now, so the Hammer.js team recommend to use the ryan mullins version, which is built over hammer v2.0+.

---

I dug into ngTouch and from what I can tell it has no support for anything other than tap and swipe (as of the time of this writing, version 1.2.0). I opted to go with a more mature multi-touch library (hammer.js) and a well tested and maintained angular module (angular-hammer) which exposes all of hammer.js's multi-touch features as attribute directives.

https://github.com/monospaced/angular-hammer

Answer 2

It is a good implementation:

// pressableElement: pressable-element
.directive('pressableElement', function ($timeout) {
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: function ($scope, $elm, $attrs) {
            $elm.bind('mousedown', function (evt) {
                $scope.longPress = true;
                $scope.click = true;

                // onLongPress: on-long-press
                $timeout(function () {
                    $scope.click = false;
                    if ($scope.longPress && $attrs.onLongPress) {
                        $scope.$apply(function () {
                            $scope.$eval($attrs.onLongPress, { $event: evt });
                        });
                    }
                }, $attrs.timeOut || 600); // timeOut: time-out

                // onTouch: on-touch
                if ($attrs.onTouch) {
                    $scope.$apply(function () {
                        $scope.$eval($attrs.onTouch, { $event: evt });
                    });
                }
            });

            $elm.bind('mouseup', function (evt) {
                $scope.longPress = false;

                // onTouchEnd: on-touch-end
                if ($attrs.onTouchEnd) {
                    $scope.$apply(function () {
                        $scope.$eval($attrs.onTouchEnd, { $event: evt });
                    });
                }

                // onClick: on-click
                if ($scope.click && $attrs.onClick) {
                    $scope.$apply(function () {
                        $scope.$eval($attrs.onClick, { $event: evt });
                    });
                }
            });
        }
    };
})

Usage example:

<div pressable-element
    ng-repeat="item in list"
    on-long-press="itemOnLongPress(item.id)"
    on-touch="itemOnTouch(item.id)"
    on-touch-end="itemOnTouchEnd(item.id)"
    on-click="itemOnClick(item.id)"
    time-out="600"
    >{{item}}</div>

var app = angular.module('pressableTest', [])

.controller('MyCtrl', function($scope) {
    $scope.result = '-';

    $scope.list = [
        { id: 1 },
        { id: 2 },
        { id: 3 },
        { id: 4 },
        { id: 5 },
        { id: 6 },
        { id: 7 }
    ];

    $scope.itemOnLongPress = function (id) { $scope.result = 'itemOnLongPress: ' + id; };
    $scope.itemOnTouch = function (id) { $scope.result = 'itemOnTouch: ' + id; };
    $scope.itemOnTouchEnd = function (id) { $scope.result = 'itemOnTouchEnd: ' + id; };
    $scope.itemOnClick = function (id) { $scope.result = 'itemOnClick: ' + id; };
})

.directive('pressableElement', function ($timeout) {
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: function ($scope, $elm, $attrs) {
            $elm.bind('mousedown', function (evt) {
                $scope.longPress = true;
                $scope.click = true;
                $scope._pressed = null;

                // onLongPress: on-long-press
                $scope._pressed = $timeout(function () {
                    $scope.click = false;
                    if ($scope.longPress && $attrs.onLongPress) {
                        $scope.$apply(function () {
                            $scope.$eval($attrs.onLongPress, { $event: evt });
                        });
                    }
                }, $attrs.timeOut || 600); // timeOut: time-out

                // onTouch: on-touch
                if ($attrs.onTouch) {
                    $scope.$apply(function () {
                        $scope.$eval($attrs.onTouch, { $event: evt });
                    });
                }
            });

            $elm.bind('mouseup', function (evt) {
                $scope.longPress = false;
                $timeout.cancel($scope._pressed);

                // onTouchEnd: on-touch-end
                if ($attrs.onTouchEnd) {
                    $scope.$apply(function () {
                        $scope.$eval($attrs.onTouchEnd, { $event: evt });
                    });
                }

                // onClick: on-click
                if ($scope.click && $attrs.onClick) {
                    $scope.$apply(function () {
                        $scope.$eval($attrs.onClick, { $event: evt });
                    });
                }
            });
        }
    };
})

li {
  cursor: pointer;
  margin: 0 0 5px 0;
  background: #FFAAAA;
}

<div ng-app="pressableTest">
    <div ng-controller="MyCtrl">
        <ul>
            <li ng-repeat="item in list"
                pressable-element
                on-long-press="itemOnLongPress(item.id)"
                on-touch="itemOnTouch(item.id)"
                on-touch-end="itemOnTouchEnd(item.id)"
                on-click="itemOnClick(item.id)"
                time-out="600"
                >{{item.id}}</li>
        </ul>
      <h3>{{result}}</h3>
    </div>
</div>

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.23/angular.min.js"></script>

Based on: https://gist.github.com/BobNisco/9885852

Answer 3

The monospaced angular-hammer library is outdated right now, so the Hammer.js team recommend to use the ryan mullins version, which is built over hammer v2.0+.