[wldlyinaccurate]

Can you give an example of where you've had to use $watch? Usually too many $watch is an indication that you could improve your app's architecture, e.g. by abstracting into directives.

FWIW I'm only speaking from personal experience and in your case lots of $watch might be necessary.

[ollysb]

A good example is where I have a list of items which is filtered by a select[1]. I have the select wired up to the controller with a two-way binding and the controller watches for changes to the binding and filters the list accordingly. Maybe this isn't an idiomatic way to do it?

[1] http://plnkr.co/edit/ykfblPHlwkBJyMeObFyV?p=preview

[olegbl]

Here's your example without a watch: http://plnkr.co/edit/GCv7bQALiOTgJ0npavwi?p=preview

[ollysb]

That looks interesting, so does the filter reevaluate automatically when any of the variables used in the expression change?

edit: and thanks a lot for taking the time to look at it!

[ollysb]

Ah, so I see that anything associated to the scope is reavaluated whenever anything else in the scope changes. Here's a further modification based on yours that keeps the criteria on the controller.

[1] http://plnkr.co/edit/JYyUvyh30e5L9KwVjDW2?p=preview

[2] http://plnkr.co/edit/ffYb14JjgSip5BTITILS?p=preview

edit: much happier with this version than the one I started with, thanks

edit: added example [2] which doesn't require a watch but still uses the service to do the filtering (because in my app it's actually an ajax call)