@workInProgress @ngdoc overview @name Tutorial: Step 2 @description

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In the last step, we remembered what a basic, static web page looks like, and now we want to get dynamic. There are many ways to do this, but an important feature of angular is the incorporation of the principles behind {@link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model–View–Controller the MVC design pattern} into client-side web apps. With that in mind, let's use a little angular and a little JavaScript to add Model, View, and Controller components to our app, and change the static page into one that is dynamically generated. Our __View__ component is constructed by angular from this template: __`app/index.html`:__

...


  
    
      {{phone.name}}
      {{phone.snippet}}
    
  

  
  

...

Our data __Model__ (a short list of phones in object literal notation) is instantiated within our __Controller__ function (`PhoneListCtrl`): __`app/js/controllers.js`:__

/* App Controllers */

function PhoneListCtrl() {
  this.phones = [{"name": "Nexus S",
                  "snippet": "Fast just got faster with Nexus S."},
                 {"name": "Motorola XOOM™ with Wi-Fi",
                  "snippet": "The Next, Next Generation tablet."},
                 {"name": "MOTOROLA XOOM™",
                  "snippet": "The Next, Next Generation tablet."}];
}

The "Angular way" urges us to test as we develop: __`test/unit/controllersSpec.js`:__

/* jasmine specs for controllers go here */
describe('PhoneCat controllers', function() {

  describe('PhoneListCtrl', function(){

    it('should create "phones" model with 3 phones', function() {
      var ctrl = new PhoneListCtrl();
      expect(ctrl.phones.length).toBe(3);
    });
  });
});

## Discussion: So what were our changes from Step 1? * __View template:__ We replaced the hard-coded phone list with the {@link angular.widget.@ng:repeat ng:repeat widget} and two {@link guide.expression angular expressions} enclosed in curly braces: `{{phone.name}}` and `{{phone.snippet}}`: * The `ng:repeat="phone in phones"` statement in the `

` tag is an angular repeater. It tells angular to create a `

` element for each phone in the phones list, using the first `

` tag as the template. * The curly braces around `phone.name` and `phone.snippet` are an example of {@link angular.markup angular markup}. The curly braces are shorthand for the angular directive {@link angular.directive.ng:bind ng:bind}. They indicate to angular that these are template binding points. Binding points are locations in the template where angular creates data-binding between the View and the Model. In angular, the View is a projection of the Model through the HTML template. This means that whenever the model changes, angular refreshes the appropriate binding points, which updates the view. * __Controller:__ At this point, it doesn't appear as if our controller is doing very much controlling, but it is playing a crucial role: providing context for our data model so we can establish data-binding between the model and the view. Note in the following how we connected the dots between our presentation, data, and logic components: * The name of our controller function (in the JavaScript file `controllers.js`) matches the {@link angular.directive.ng:controller ng:controller} directive in the `` tag (`PhoneListCtrl`). * We instantiated our data within the scope of our controller function, and our template binding points are located within the block bounded by the ` {@link tutorial.step_00 Previous} {@link http://angular.github.com/angular-phonecat/step-2/app Example} {@link tutorial Tutorial Home} {@link https://github.com/angular/angular-phonecat/compare/step-1...step-2 Code Diff} {@link tutorial.step_00 Next}