How can I select an element in a component template?

Question

Does anybody know how to get hold of an element defined in a component template? Polymer makes it really easy with the $ and $$.

I was just

Answer 1

Note: This doesn't apply to Angular 6 and above as ElementRef became ElementRef with T denoting the type of nativeElement.

I would like to add that if you are using ElementRef, as recommended by all answers, then you will immediately encounter the problem that ElementRef has an awful type declaration that looks like

export declare class ElementRef {
  nativeElement: any;
}

this is stupid in a browser environment where nativeElement is an HTMLElement.

To workaround this you can use the following technique

import {Inject, ElementRef as ErrorProneElementRef} from '@angular/core';

interface ElementRef {
  nativeElement: HTMLElement;
}

@Component({...}) export class MyComponent {
  constructor(@Inject(ErrorProneElementRef) readonly elementRef: ElementRef) { }
}