How to use canvas in Angular

Question

The common approaching to use canvas in javascript is like :

var canvas = document.getElementById('tutorial');
var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');

but in Angular2 I cannot get the HTMLCanvasElement object, the var "canvas" only get the HTMLElement in Angular2. So how to use canvas in Angular2? And furthermore, how to use the third-party javascript in Angular2 with the language TypeScript?

Answer 1

You can accomplish this by using @ViewChild

In your class do the following.

import { Component, ViewChild, ElementRef, AfterViewInit } from '@angular/core';

@Component({
   name: 'my-component',
   // notice the variable name myCanvas
   template: `<canvas #myCanvas></canvas>`
})
export class myComponent implements AfterViewInit {
  // its important myCanvas matches the variable name in the template
  @ViewChild('myCanvas')
  canvas: ElementRef<HTMLCanvasElement>;

  context: CanvasRenderingContext2D;

  ngAfterViewInit(): void {
    this.context = this.canvas.nativeElement.getContext('2d');
  }
}

Try to stay away from using document as much as you can, as it could bite you on the long run. Also using @ViewChild has an advantage over querying the DOM, once the application is compiled. Angular already knows ahead of time which element it needs to do the modifications on, rather than having to find it in the DOM.

For a full example check out this demo

---

Update

For angular 8 you need to use ViewChild like this.

@ViewChild('myCanvas', {static: false}) myCanvas: ElementRef;

See How should I use the new static option for @ViewChild in Angular 8? for more information