relativeDate

relativeDate is an Angular.js module containing one service, injectable by the same name.

Replaces iso-formated, date-time stamps with auto-updating, relative time labels

eg. "just now", "about 1 minute ago", or "yesterday"

checkout the Demo to see it in action.

available through bower

bower install angular-relative

Usage

first declare relativeDate as a dependency of your module

angular.module("myApp",["relativeDate"])

Now you may inject the included service, relativeDate into your controllers and directives.

relativeDate has one method, set which takes the following parameters.

1. (required) the datetime stamp to be used.
2. (required) a callback function that will be called with one argument: the relative-date string calculated by the service
3. (optional) a format string to override the default. (more on this later)

example

relativeDate.set( isoTime, function(relativeDate) {
  $scope.modelObject.relTime = relativeDate;
});

Your callback will be called once immediately, and again every 60 seconds. Angular's 2-way databinding will take care of updating the DOM everytime the value changes, assuming that you are binding your variable to a DOM element.

About that format string thing,

At some point, a timestamp becomes so long ago that a relative date is no longer helpful. relativeDate handles this situation by checking the time diff against a cutoffDay variable. This variable is set to 22 days (3 weeks and a day) by default, however you can easily set it to whatever you like using the relativeDateProvider in your config function.

If a timestamp is passed the cutoffDay than relativeDate will immediately cancel its timer and return an absolute date formated by angulars built-in dateFilter. The default format string given to dateFilter is "MMM d, yyyy" (April 18, 2014). This can be overridden globally using the provider or on a case by case basis by providing the desired format string as the optional third argument to set.

examples

angular.module("myApp",["relativeDate"]).config(function(relativeDateProvider) {
  relativeDateProvider.cutoffDayCount(15);

  relativeDateProvider.defaultFallbackFormat("MMM d, h:mma");
});

Pull requests welcome. Feel free to fork and hack at will!