Using an ng-option dropdown in a ui-grid editableCellTemplate [ng-grid 3.x]

Question

I'm using ng-grid's new 3.0 release ui-grid to make a grid in my application. What i'm trying to do is make one of the editable cells in my table an ng-options dropdown that is filled with data retrieved with an angular factory.

I'm trying to do this by using the editableCellTemplate feature of the ui-grid.

Here is some example code:

HTML:

<div ui-grid="gridOptions" ui-grid-edit class="grid"></div>

Controller:

$scope.gridOptions = {
    enableSorting: true,
    enableFiltering: true,
    enableCellEditOnFocus: true,
    columnDefs: [
      { field: 'name',
        sort: {
          direction: 'desc',
          priority: 1
        }
      },
      { field: 'gender', editType: 'dropdown', enableCellEdit: true,
          editableCellTemplate: 'temp.html' },
      { field: 'company', enableSorting: false }
]};

temp.html:

<div>
    <select ng-model="row.entity.gender" data-ng-options="d as d.type for d in genderType">
        <option value="" selected disabled>Choose Gender</option>
    </select>
</div>

Here is a plunker with the code. [Note: this is just example code. Array for ng-options is being pulled in from angular factory in actual code and not declared in scope. editDropdownOptionsArray will probably not work because data is dynamic.]

Is it possible to do this with ui-grid? I thought maybe it was an issue of scope because if I would put the ng-option code in my HTML page it worked as expected, but what I can gather from ui-grid documentation is that the temp.html file should be in the scope. I know this stuff is still in unstable release, but any help on the matter would be appreciated!

---

**UPDATE 3/31/2015:**

Just a note if you are trying out this solution and it doesn't work. In January the code for external scopes was refactored from getExternalScopes() to grid.addScope.source. https://github.com/angular-ui/ng-grid/issues/1379

Here's the updated plunkr with the new code: Click Me!

Answer 1

You would need to use the external-scopes feature within 3.x version of ui-grid. The reason why you are not able to get any options in the select dropdown is because ui-grid now uses an isolated scope and this will not allow you to directly access app scope variables when in a cell.

I was able to get your plunkr working with steps below - see updated plunkr

Steps:

1) Within index.html, specify the external-scopes attribute in the grid div i.e. modify

<div ui-grid="gridOptions" ui-grid-edit class="grid"></div>

to

<div ui-grid="gridOptions" ui-grid-edit class="grid" external-scopes="myExternalScope"></div> 

2) Within app.js, assign the scope to our external-scope property i.e add this line:

$scope.myExternalScope = $scope;

3) Within temp.html, access the genderTypes array using getExternalScopes() i.e. modify editableCellTemplate value from

<select ng-model="row.entity.Gender" data-ng-options="d as d.type for d in genderType">

to

<select ng-model="row.entity.Gender" data-ng-options="d as d.type for d in getExternalScopes().genderTypes">

Extra Thoughts:

1) I did not find the ui-grid/dropdownEditor suitable for my needs - hence, did not try this out yet.

2) You can add cellTemplate also along with editableCellTemplate. You can assign both the same value.

References:

1. http://ui-grid.info/docs/#/tutorial/305_externalScopes