Post-processing the DOM in AngularJS

You can do this with a setTimeout like this. even if the time is 0, it will only run after the angular finish it processing.

The problem is that the linky filter will add the 'a' tags after the directive is evaluated and element.find('a') won't find anything.

I think the best solution would be to write your own url filter which then calls the linky filter and don't use a directive.

Update

I created a jsfiddle for that as well: http://jsfiddle.net/jomikr/ADukg/420/

1. Open file angular-sanitize.js
2. Go to line 525
3. Change it to writer.start('a', {href:url, target:'_blank'});

Alert - linky will add target _blank to every link, now!

Renan's answer works well, but won't work on links that have been added after pageload.

If you need to add _target blank to new links, try using a filter with a watch event:

JS

app.directive('targetBlank', function() {
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
            scope.$watch(attrs.targetBlank, function(){
                element.find('a').attr('target', '_blank');
            });
        }
    };
});

HTML

<div ng-bind-html="textModel | linky" target-blank="textModel"></div>

and what about just using a function in the controller.

I'm using this in the controller:

$scope.getTarget = function(isExternal) {
    return isExternal ? '_blank' : '';
}

and in the html:

<div ng-repeat="slide in slides" data-slider-id="{{$index}}">
    <a ng-hide="{{slide.link == ''}}" 
       href="{{slide.link}}" 
       target="{{getTarget(slide.isExternal)}}">
...