angular.element vs document.getElementById or jQuery selector with spin (busy) control

It can work like that:

var myElement = angular.element( document.querySelector( '#some-id' ) );

You wrap the Document.querySelector() native Javascript call into the angular.element() call. So you always get the element in a jqLite or jQuery object, depending whether or not jQuery is available/loaded.

Official documentation for angular.element:

If jQuery is available, angular.element is an alias for the jQuery function. If jQuery is not available, angular.element delegates to Angulars built-in subset of jQuery, that called "jQuery lite" or jqLite.

All element references in Angular are always wrapped with jQuery or jqLite (such as the element argument in a directives compile or link function). They are never raw DOM references.

In case you do wonder why to use document.querySelector(), please read this answer.

You should read the angular element docs if you haven't yet, so you can understand what is supported by jqLite and what not -jqlite is a subset of jquery built into angular.

Those selectors won't work with jqLite alone, since selectors by id are not supported.

  var target = angular.element('#appBusyIndicator');  var target = angular.element('appBusyIndicator');

So, either :

• you use jqLite alone, more limited than jquery, but enough in most of the situations.
• or you include the full jQuery lib in your app, and use it like normal jquery, in the places that you really need jquery.

Edit: Note that jQuery should be loaded before angularJS in order to take precedence over jqLite:

Real jQuery always takes precedence over jqLite, provided it was loaded before DOMContentLoaded event fired.

Edit2: I missed the second part of the question before:

The issue with <input type="number"> , I think it is not an angular issue, it is the intended behaviour of the native html5 number element.

It won't return a non-numeric value even if you try to retrieve it with jquery's .val() or with the raw .value attribute.

var target = document.getElementById('appBusyIndicator');

is equal to

var target = $document[0].getElementById('appBusyIndicator');