Angular 1.5 component vs. old directive - where is a link function?

Question

I\'ve been reading this nice recent article about new .component() helper in Angular 1.5, which is supposed to help everyone to migrate to Angular 2 eventually.

Answer 1

Update (from august 22, 2017): $inject is recommended way for doing this in AngularJS. Read Styleguide: Styleguide link and AngularJS docs: AngularJS docs

For using DOM bindings in components instead of creating directive with link function you can inject '$element' or other service you need in your controller function, e.g.

app.component('pickerField', {
    controller: PickerField,
    template: 'Your template goes here'
  });

  PickerField.$inject = ['$element'];

  function PickerField(element) {
    var self = this;
    self.model = self.node.model;
    self.open = function() {
      console.log('smth happens here');
    };
    element.bind('click', function(e) {
      console.log('clicked from component', e);
      self.open();
    });
  }