How to set bootstrap navbar active class with Angular JS?

If I have a navbar in bootstrap with the items

Home | About | Contact

How do I set the active class for each menu item when they are active? That is, how can I set class="active" when the angular route is at

1. #/ for home
2. #/about for the about page
3. #/contact for the contact page

A very elegant way is to use ng-controller to run a single controller outside of the ng-view:

<div class="collapse navbar-collapse" ng-controller="HeaderController">
    <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
        <li ng-class="{ active: isActive('/')}"><a href="/">Home</a></li>
        <li ng-class="{ active: isActive('/dogs')}"><a href="/dogs">Dogs</a></li>
        <li ng-class="{ active: isActive('/cats')}"><a href="/cats">Cats</a></li>
    </ul>
</div>
<div ng-view></div>

and include in controllers.js:

function HeaderController($scope, $location) 
{ 
    $scope.isActive = function (viewLocation) { 
        return viewLocation === $location.path();
    };
}

I just wrote a directive to handle this, so you can simply add the attribute bs-active-link to the parent <ul> element, and any time the route changed, it will find the matching link, and add the active class to the corresponding <li>.

You can see it in action here: http://jsfiddle.net/8mcedv3b/

Example HTML:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav" bs-active-link>
  <li><a href="/home">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="/contact">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

Javascript:

angular.module('appName')
.directive('bsActiveLink', ['$location', function ($location) {
return {
    restrict: 'A', //use as attribute 
    replace: false,
    link: function (scope, elem) {
        //after the route has changed
        scope.$on("$routeChangeSuccess", function () {
            var hrefs = ['/#' + $location.path(),
                         '#' + $location.path(), //html5: false
                         $location.path()]; //html5: true
            angular.forEach(elem.find('a'), function (a) {
                a = angular.element(a);
                if (-1 !== hrefs.indexOf(a.attr('href'))) {
                    a.parent().addClass('active');
                } else {
                    a.parent().removeClass('active');   
                };
            });     
        });
    }
}
}]);

You can have a look at AngularStrap, the navbar directive seems to be what you are looking for:

https://github.com/mgcrea/angular-strap/blob/master/src/navbar/navbar.js

.directive('bsNavbar', function($location) {
  'use strict';

  return {
    restrict: 'A',
    link: function postLink(scope, element, attrs, controller) {
      // Watch for the $location
      scope.$watch(function() {
        return $location.path();
      }, function(newValue, oldValue) {

        $('li[data-match-route]', element).each(function(k, li) {
          var $li = angular.element(li),
            // data('match-rout') does not work with dynamic attributes
            pattern = $li.attr('data-match-route'),
            regexp = new RegExp('^' + pattern + '$', ['i']);

          if(regexp.test(newValue)) {
            $li.addClass('active');
          } else {
            $li.removeClass('active');
          }

        });
      });
    }
  };
});

To use this directive:

1. Download AngularStrap from http://mgcrea.github.io/angular-strap/

2. Include the script on your page after bootstrap.js:
   <script src="lib/angular-strap.js"></script>

3. Add the directives to your module:
   angular.module('myApp', ['$strap.directives'])

4. Add the directive to your navbar:
   <div class="navbar" bs-navbar>

5. Add regexes on each nav item:
   <li data-match-route="/about"><a href="#/about">About</a></li>

Here's a simple approach that works well with Angular.

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
    <li ng-class="{ active: isActive('/View1') }"><a href="#/View1">View 1</a></li>
    <li ng-class="{ active: isActive('/View2') }"><a href="#/View2">View 2</a></li>
    <li ng-class="{ active: isActive('/View3') }"><a href="#/View3">View 3</a></li>
</ul>

Within your AngularJS controller:

$scope.isActive = function (viewLocation) {
     var active = (viewLocation === $location.path());
     return active;
};

If you are working with Angular router, the RouterLinkActive directive can be used really elegantly:

<ul class="navbar-nav">
  <li class="nav-item"><a class="nav-link" routerLink="home" routerLinkActive="active">Home</a></li>
  <li class="nav-item"><a class="nav-link" routerLink="gallery" routerLinkActive="active">Gallery</a></li>
  <li class="nav-item"><a class="nav-link" routerLink="pricing" routerLinkActive="active">Prices</a></li>
  <li class="nav-item"><a class="nav-link" routerLink="contact" routerLinkActive="active">Contact</a></li>
</ul>