How to Effectively Display Multiple Values in Angular Material's Mat-Option

Описание: Learn how to concatenate and display multiple values in Angular Material's mat-option. Follow our step-by-step guide to make your user interface more informative.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/64521836/ asked by the user 'Latcie' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/2255814/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/64526179/ provided by the user 'Becike' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/14483064/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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Introduction

In Angular applications, especially those that utilize Angular Material, it’s common to create user-friendly interfaces that allow users to select from a list of options. One challenge that developers often face is how to display multiple values from an object when a user makes a selection. For example, if you have items that have both a name and a cost, how can you make sure the user sees both pieces of information?

The Problem

Imagine you have an interface representing items that includes properties like name and cost. When using the mat-option component within an Angular Material autocomplete, you might find that using [value]="item.name" only allows you to display the item name, leaving out the associated cost. So, how can you concatenate and display both the name and cost in an intuitive manner?

The Solution

To address this issue, let’s break down the steps to effectively display both values by customizing the display of the selected option in Angular Material's autocomplete.

Step 1: Displaying the Item Name and Cost

Instead of only binding the item's name to the value, you can format the display content to include both the name and the cost. Here's how to achieve this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In this code block, we are concatenating the item name and cost in the desired format of Name (Cost).

Step 2: Using an Object for the Value

It’s important to set the [value] property to the entire object instead of just the name. This ensures that all properties of the item can be accessed later.

Change [value]="item.name" to [value]="item" to reference the whole object.

Step 3: Implementing the displayWith Function

To effectively display selected values in the input box of your autocomplete component, use the [displayWith] attribute along with a function that formats how values are presented. Here’s how:

Example Form

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Display Function in TypeScript

In your component's TypeScript file, define the displayFn function as follows:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

This code checks if the item is defined and returns a formatted string that shows both the name and cost.

Summary

By following the above steps, you can create a more effective and informative user interface that displays multiple values from your Angular Material components.

Key Takeaways:

Use mat-option to display both names and costs.

Bind the entire object to the [value] attribute instead of just a single property.

Implement the displayWith function to control how selected values are presented in the input field.

With these techniques, your Angular application can deliver a better user experience while reducing confusion surrounding item selection. Happy coding!