You can use ngModel in your own directives, but there are a few things you'll need to do to get it working properly.
ngModel itself is an directive. If you want to use it inside your own directive, you should use require keyword.
/** * Created by Answer1215 on 12/18/2014. */ angular.module('app', []) .directive('bank', function() { return{ restrict: 'E', template: '<div>Click me to add $10 into your account</div>', require: 'ngModel', //The ^ prefix means that this directive searches for the controller on its parents (without the ^ prefix, the directive would look for the controller on just its own element) link: function(scope, element, attrs, ngModelCtrl) { //so it looks for the controller on ngModel --> ngModelController //it has method setViewValue //has prop: viewValue element.on('click', function() { ngModelCtrl.$setViewValue(ngModelCtrl.$viewValue + 10); scope.$apply(); }) } } })
<!DOCTYPE html> <html ng-app="app"> <head lang="en"> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title></title> </head> <body> <div ng-init="money=10"></div> <bank ng-model="money"></bank> {{money | currency}} <script src="bower_components/angular/angular.min.js"></script> <script src="app.js"></script> </body> </html>