Angular-ui.router: Update URL without view refresh - angularjs

Question

I have an Angular SPA that presents a variety of recommendation lists, and a Google Map of locations, based on different cuts of some restaurant data (see m.amsterdamfoodie.nl). I want each of these lists to have their own URL. In order for Google to crawl the different lists I use <a> tags for the offcanvas navigation.
At present the <a> tag causes a view refresh, which is very noticeable with the map.
I can prevent this using ng-click and $event.preventDefault() (see code snippets below), but then I need to implement a means of updating the browser URL.
But in trying Angular's $state or the browser's history.pushstate, I end up triggering state changes and the view refresh...!
My question is therefore how can I update a model and the URL, but without refreshing the view? (See also Angular/UI-Router - How Can I Update The URL Without Refreshing Everything?)
I have experimented with a lot of approaches and currently have this html
Budget
In the controller:
this.action = ($event) ->
$event.preventDefault()
params = $event.target.href.match(/criteria\/(.*)\/(.*)$/)
# seems to cause a view refresh
# history.pushState({}, "page 2", "criteria/"+params[1]+"/"+params[2]);
# seems to cause a view refresh
# $state.transitionTo 'criteria', {criteria:params[1], q:params[2]}, {inherit:false}
updateModel(...)
And, what is I think is happening is that I am triggering the $stateProvider code:
angular.module 'afmnewApp'
.config ($stateProvider) ->
$stateProvider
.state 'main',
url: '/'
templateUrl: 'app/main/main.html'
controller: 'MainCtrl'
controllerAs: 'main'
.state 'criteria',
url: '/criteria/:criteria/:q'
templateUrl: 'app/main/main.html'
controller: 'MainCtrl'
controllerAs: 'main'
One possible clue is that with the code below if I load e.g. http://afmnew.herokuapp.com/criteria/cuisine/italian then the view refreshes as you navigate, whereas if I load http://afmnew.herokuapp.com/ there are no refreshes, but no URL updates instead. I don't understand why that is happening at all.

Answer 1

This is an example of the way to go if I understand correctly:
$state.go('my.state', {id:data.id}, {notify:false, reload:false});
//And to remove the id from the url:
$state.go('my.state', {id:undefined}, {notify:false, reload:false});
From user l-liava-l in the issue https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router/issues/64
You can check the $state API here: http://angular-ui.github.io/ui-router/site/#/api/ui.router.state.$state

Answer 2

Based on our previous discussions, I want to give you some idea, how to use UI-Router here. I believe, I understand your challenge properly... There is a working example. If this not fully suites, please take it as some inspiration
DISCLAIMER: With a plunker, I was not able to achieve this: http://m.amsterdamfoodie.nl/, but the principle should be in that example similar
So, there is a state definition (we have only two states)
$stateProvider
.state('main', {
url: '/',
views: {
'#' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.layout.html',
controller: 'MainCtrl',
},
'right#main' : { templateUrl: 'tpl.right.html',},
'map#main' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.map.html',
controller: 'MapCtrl',
},
'list#main' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.list.html',
controller: 'ListCtrl',
},
},
})
.state('main.criteria', {
url: '^/criteria/:criteria/:value',
views: {
'map' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.map.html',
controller: 'MapCtrl',
},
'list' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.list.html',
controller: 'ListCtrl',
},
},
})
}];
This would be our main tpl.layout.html
<div>
<section class="main">
<section class="map">
<div ui-view="map"></div>
</section>
<section class="list">
<div ui-view="list"></div>
</section>
</section>
<section class="right">
<div ui-view="right"></div>
</section>
</div>
As we can see, the main state does target these nested views of the main state: 'viewName#main', e.g. 'right#main'
Also the subview, main.criteria does inject into layout views.
Its url starts with a sign ^ (url : '^/criteria/:criteria/:value'), which allows to have / slash for main and not doubled slash for child
And also there are controllers, they are here a bit naive, but they should show, that on the background could be real data load (based on criteria).
The most important stuff here is, that the PARENT MainCtrl creates the $scope.Model = {}. This property will be (thanks to inheritance) shared among parent and children. That's why this all will work:
app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope)
{
$scope.Model = {};
$scope.Model.data = ['Rest1', 'Rest2', 'Rest3', 'Rest4', 'Rest5'];
$scope.Model.randOrd = function (){ return (Math.round(Math.random())-0.5); };
})
.controller('ListCtrl', function($scope, $stateParams)
{
$scope.Model.list = []
$scope.Model.data
.sort( $scope.Model.randOrd )
.forEach(function(i) {$scope.Model.list.push(i + " - " + $stateParams.value || "root")})
$scope.Model.selected = $scope.Model.list[0];
$scope.Model.select = function(index){
$scope.Model.selected = $scope.Model.list[index];
}
})
This should get some idea how we can use the features provided for us by UI-Router:
Absolute Routes (^)
Scope Inheritance by View Hierarchy Only
View Names - Relative vs. Absolute Names
Check the above extract here, in the working example
Extend: new plunker here
If we do not want to have map view to be recreated, we can just omit that form the child state def:
.state('main.criteria', {
url: '^/criteria/:criteria/:value',
views: {
// 'map' : {
// templateUrl: 'tpl.map.html',
// controller: 'MapCtrl',
//},
'list' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.list.html',
controller: 'ListCtrl',
},
},
})
Now our map VIEW will be just recieving changes in the model (could be watched) but view and controller won't be rerendered
ALSO, there is another plunker http://plnkr.co/edit/y0GzHv?p=preview which uses the controllerAs
.state('main', {
url: '/',
views: {
'#' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.layout.html',
controller: 'MainCtrl',
controllerAs: 'main', // here
},
...
},
})
.state('main.criteria', {
url: '^/criteria/:criteria/:value',
views: {
'list' : {
templateUrl: 'tpl.list.html',
controller: 'ListCtrl',
controllerAs: 'list', // here
},
},
})
and that could be used like this:
<h4>{{main.hello()}}</h4>
<h4>{{list.hello()}}</h4>
The last plunker is here

Answer 3

you can use scope inheritance to update url without refreshing view
$stateProvider
.state('itemList', {
url: '/itemlist',
templateUrl: 'Scripts/app/item/ItemListTemplate.html',
controller: 'ItemListController as itemList'
//abstract: true //abstract maybe?
}).state('itemList.itemDetail', {
url: '/:itemName/:itemID',
templateUrl: 'Scripts/app/item/ItemDetailTemplate.html',
controller: 'ItemDetailController as itemDetail',
resolve: {
'CurrentItemID': ['$stateParams',function ($stateParams) {
return $stateParams['itemID'];
}]
}
})
if child view is inside parent view both controllers share same scope.
so you can place a dummy (or neccessary) ui-view inside parent view which will be populated by child view.
and insert a
$scope.loadChildData = function(itemID){..blabla..};
function in parent controller which will be called by child controller on controller load. so when a user clicks
<a ui-sref="childState({itemID: 12})">bla</a>
only child controller and child view will be refreshed. then you can call parent scope function with necessary parameters.

Answer 4

The short answer ended up being do not put the map inside a view that changes. The accepted answer provides a lot more detail on how to structure a page with sub-views, but the key point is not to make the map part of the view but to connect its behaviour to a view that does change and to use a Controller to update the market icons.