API > Directives

ChangeDirective

Description

A directive that dispatches an interaction event when an input, textarea, or select element changes value.

Selector

oculrChange

Properties

Property	Description
oculrChange: DirectiveEvent	optional DirectiveEvent holds useful identifiers and data determined by the consuming application.
sensitiveData: boolean	optional Controls whether or not the directive captures the value of the input or select element. Defaulted to false.

Quick start

Add the directive oculrChange to any for the following host elements in an Angular component's template.

Supported elements
input type="checkbox"
input type="date"
input type="number"
input type="radio"
input type="search"
input type="text"
select
textarea

Checkbox input

<input oculrChange type="checkbox" id="attestation" formControlName="attestation" />
<label for="attestation">Do you agree to the terms?</label>

Radio input

<p>What is your favorite mythical creature?</p>
<div>
  <input oculrChange type="radio" id="dragon" value="dragon" formControlName="mythical" />
  <label for="dragon">Dragon</label>
</div>
<div>
  <input oculrChange type="radio" id="unicorn" value="unicorn" formControlName="mythical" />
  <label for="unicorn">Unicorn</label>
</div>
<div>
  <input oculrChange type="radio" id="mermaid" value="mermaid" formControlName="mythical" />
  <label for="mermaid">Mermaid</label>
</div>

Select

<label for="favoriteFood">What is you favorite food?</label>
<select oculrChange id="favoriteFood" formControlName="favoriteFood">
  <option value=""></option>
  <option value="pizza">Pizza</option>
  <option value="tacos">Tacos</option>
  <option value="ramen">Ramen</option>
</select>

It is required to include an identifier with the interaction event to help with analysis later. By default the directive will use the host element's id attribute if no other identifier is provided.

Another way to include an identifier is by using property binding with the oculrChange directive.

<input [oculrChange]="{ id: 'alternateAttestation' }" type="checkbox" id="attestation" formControlName="attestation" />
<label for="attestation">Do you agree to the terms?</label>

An DirectiveEvent type object is being used in this property binding, where alternateAttestation will be used as the identifier since it takes priority over the host element's id attribute. It is recommended to still include an id attribute in this scenario as it is used for linking the label to the form control. There are other properties that can be set on the DirectiveEvent object, which you can read about more in the DirectiveEvent documentation.

To minimize the amount of content done in the component's template, it is recommended to prepare any DirectiveEvent objects in the ngOnInit() of the component.

import { DirectiveEvent } from 'oculr-ngx';

@Component({
  template: `
    <input [oculrChange]="attestationEvent" type="checkbox" id="attestation" formControlName="attestation" />
    <label for="attestation">Do you agree to the terms?</label>
  `,
})
export class FormComponent implements OnInit {
  attestationEvent: DirectiveEvent;

  ngOnInit() {
    attestationEvent = { id: 'alternateAttestation' };
  }
}

Example output

The following data is an example of the output when using the oculrChange directive on select element.

{
  "id": "favoriteFood",
  "interactionType": "change",
  "interactionDetail": "mouse",
  "element": "select",
  "label": "What is you favorite food?",
  "value": "ramen",
  "displayValue": "Ramen",
  "eventType": "CHANGE_EVENT",
  "location": {
    "hostName": "http://example-site.com",
    "path": "/menu",
    "url": "http://example-site.com/menu",
    "queryString": "",
    "virtualPageName": "/menu"
  }
}

Deeper dive

Sensitive data

Protecting user information is vital and the oculrChange directive has a sensitiveData input property that blocks the capture of data related to any answer provided by a user.

<label for="dob">Date of birth:</label>
<input oculrChange [sensitiveData]="true" type="date" id="dob" formControlName="dob" />

The following table describes what is not captured when sensitivedata is set to true.

Control type	HTML data not captured
input type="checkbox"	The text content of the linked label element(s). The checked attribute of the input element.
input type="date"	The value attribute of the input element.
input type="number"	The value attribute of the input element.
input type="radio"	The text content of the linked label element(s). The value attribute of the input element.
input type="search"	The value attribute of the input element.
input type="text"	The value attribute of the input element.
select	The text content of any option element. The value attribute of any option element.
textarea	The value attribute of the textarea element.

Control differences

The oculrChange directive captures similar data for each control type. The exception for this is linked label elements. For select elements the label is the question being asked to the user, while for radio and checkbox inputs the label is often the answer to the question. The following examples show the differnces.

<label for="favoriteFood">What is your favorite food?</label>
<select oculrChange id="favoriteFood" formControlName="favoriteFood">
  <option value=""></option>
  <option value="pizza">Pizza</option>
  <option value="tacos">Tacos</option>
  <option value="ramen">Ramen</option>
</select>

For this select example the following data is captured in the output. The label captured is the question being asked to the user.

Output property	Value
id	"favoriteFood"
label	"What is your favorite food?"
value	"ramen"
displayValue	"Ramen"

<p>What is your favorite food?</p>
<div>
  <input oculrChange type="radio" id="pizzaRadio" value="pizza" formControlName="favoriteFood" />
  <label for="pizzaRadio">Pizza</label>
</div>
<div>
  <input oculrChange type="radio" id="tacosRadio" value="tacos" formControlName="favoriteFood" />
  <label for="tacosRadio">Tacos</label>
</div>
<div>
  <input oculrChange type="radio" id="ramenRadio" value="ramen" formControlName="favoriteFood" />
  <label for="ramenRadio">Ramen</label>
</div>

For this radio input example the following data is captured. The label property is a repeat of the displayValue rather than the question being asked in the paragraph element. While the user may see the elements as related, there is nothing technically that links the paragraph element to the following input elements.

Another difference with radio inputs is that they will prioritize the formControlName or name attributes on the host element when setting the id of the DirectiveEvent. This helps with the many radio inputs representing a single question situation that is common with this type of control.

Output property	Value
id	"favoriteFood"
label	"Ramen"
value	"ramen"
displayValue	"Ramen"

To capture the question for the radio input example, it is recommended to prepare an DirectiveEvent object and set the label property to match what the user would see.

import { DirectiveEvent } from 'oculr-ngx';

@Component({
  template: `
    <p>What is your favorite food?</p>
    <div>
      <input
        [oculrChange]="favoriteFoodEvent"
        type="radio"
        id="pizzaRadio"
        value="pizza"
        formControlName="favoriteFood"
      />
      <label for="pizzaRadio">Pizza</label>
    </div>
    <!--...-->
  `,
})
export class FormComponent implements OnInit {
  favoriteFoodEvent: DirectiveEvent;

  ngOnInit() {
    favoriteFoodEvent = { label: 'What is your favorite food?' };
  }
}

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