Resources in Angular 4 (and 5) are scarce. Really. Sometimes I get so lost in sifting through Stack Overflow that I end up translating the answers that I have found in older versions (1.x and 2.x) using the latest Angular docs.

One of the tasks in the project that I am working on involves uploading a file using either a drag-and-drop box or by clicking browse, like so:

Essentially, I want to trigger the file input button hidden in the page to open the file browser when browse (which is an anchor tag) is clicked.

For newbs like me, I initially resorted to search for packages in NPM, only to know that some are barely maintained, not tested for compatibility with newer versions of Angular, or have too many features that I do not need.

Realizing my mistake, I decided to look for a simpler answer but many of them still require me to import modules that bloat the project.

Before starting, here are my stats:

Angular CLI: 1.7.0-beta.3
Node: 8.9.4
OS: linux x64
Angular: 4.4.6
... animations, common, compiler, compiler-cli, core, forms
... http, language-service, platform-browser
... platform-browser-dynamic, router, tsc-wrapped

@angular/cli: 1.7.0-beta.3
@angular-devkit/build-optimizer: 0.2.0
@angular-devkit/core: 0.2.0
@angular-devkit/schematics: 0.2.0
@ngtools/json-schema: 1.1.0
@ngtools/webpack: 1.10.0-beta.3
@schematics/angular: 0.2.0
@schematics/package-update: 0.2.0
typescript: 2.3.4
webpack: 3.10.0

I particularly disliked angular.element as it is just a wrapper that still utilizes jQuery and as much as possible I like to keep my code free from imports that I can't reuse. Ultimately, I came across a more efficient solution by using HTMLElement, an interface from Web API.

So this is how I did it, to give you (and future me) a guide:

The Template

The page view is named uploadFile.component.html

Important stuff:

• The class .hide-style contains {display: none} to hide the file input.
• The id #tenantPhotoId is an identifier used to reference the file input.
• The variable tenantIDFileName binds the file name of the file to be displayed on the page.

The Component

The TS file is named uploadFile.component.ts

Important stuff:

• The method onFileChange($event) displays the file name of the file being uploaded by assigning it on the variable tenantIDFileName.
• The method openFileBrowser($event) triggers the click event on the file browser.

Walkthrough of the Process

When browse is clicked, openFileBrowser($event) is called with $event as the argument. This is so we can use preventDefault() to prevent the normal behavior of an anchor tag of redirecting to the page it is pointed to.

Then, the value is fetched using the ID of the file input using document.getElementById() and is casted to an HTMLElement type.

HTMLElement represents any element in the document and implements Event Handler interface, so now we can call click(). Successfully, the file browser is triggered to open.

Whenever a file is selected, onFileChange($event) will be called and the tenantIDFileName variable will be assigned as the value of the filename and is displayed on the page.

Note that in the actual file upload process, you can consume an API endpoint that will store the data on your server or call a third-party service like AWS S3.

EDIT: If you've found a better solution then we can help each other out by sharing as many references as we can. :-)

There you go! Happy hacking!