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Tim Kindberg edited this page Jul 19, 2013 · 69 revisions

Next (Nested States & Nested Views) ►

This In-Depth Guide will take you through all aspects of the UI-Router and its components and options. If you just need a quick reference guide visit the Quick Reference

State Manager

The new $stateProvider works similar to Angular's v1 router, but it focuses purely on state.

  • A state corresponds to a "place" in the application in terms of the overall UI and navigation.
  • A state describes (via the controller / template / view properties) what the UI looks like and does at that place.
  • States often have things in common, and the primary way of factoring out these commonalities in this model is via the state hierarchy, i.e. parent/child states aka nested states.

The simplest form of state

A state in its simplest form can be added like this (typically within module.config):

<!-- in index.html -->
<body ng-controller="MainCtrl">
<section ui-view></section>
</body>
// in app-states.js (or whatever you want to name it)
$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  template: '<h1>My Contacts</h1>'
})

The template is automatically placed into the lone ui-view when the state is activated. Right now, it won't ever be activated. You still have more to learn young padawan... let's continue.

Activating a state

There are three ways to activate a state:

  1. Give it a url and then navigate to that url in the browser. Learn More.
  2. Use $state.transitionTo(). Learn More.
  3. Coming Soon. $state.go().

Alternative ways to set the Template

In addition to the example above...

Instead of writing the template inline you can load a partial. This is probably how you'll set templates most of the time.

$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  templateUrl: 'contacts.html'
})

templateUrl can also be a function that returns a url. It takes one preset parameter, stateParams, which is not injected.

$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  templateUrl: function (stateParams){
    return '/partials/contacts.' + stateParams.filterBy + '.html';
  }
})

Or you can use a template provider function which can be injected, has access to locals, and must return template HTML, like this:

$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  templateProvider: function ($timeout, $stateParams) {
    return $timeout(function () { return '<h1>'+$stateParams.contactId+'</h1>' }, 100);
  }
})

Controllers

You can pair a template with a controller like this:

$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  template: '<h1>{{title}}</h1>',
  controller: function($scope){
    $scope.title = 'My Contacts';
  }
})

Or if you already have a controller defined on the module, like this:

$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  controller: 'ContactsCtrl'
})

Controllers can use the $scope.on() method to listen for events fired by state transitions.

Controllers are instantiated on an as-needed basis, when their corresponding scopes are created, i.e. when the user manually navigates to a state via a URL, $stateProvider will load the correct template into the view, then bind the controller to the template's scope.

Resolve

You can use resolve to provide your controller with content or data that is custom to the state. Resolve is an optional map of dependencies which should be injected into the controller. If any of these dependencies are promises, they will be resolved and converted to a value before the controller is instantiated and the $routeChangeSuccess event is fired. The map object is:

  • key – {string}: a name of a dependency to be injected into the controller.
  • factory - {string|function}: If string then it is an alias for a service. Otherwise if function, then it is injected and the return value is treated as the dependency. If the result is a promise, it is resolved before its value is injected into the controller.

Here's a resolved service example. Assume you had a service called translations that stored translated copies of all strings in your application.

$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  template: '<h1>{{title}}</h1>',
  resolve: { translations: "translations" },
  controller: function($scope, translations){
    $scope.title = translations.lang.title;
  }
})

Here's a resolved factory function example. The factory function is injectable as well (not shown).

$stateProvider.state('contacts', {
  template: '<h1>{{title}}</h1>',
  resolve: { title: function(){ return 'My Contacts' } },
  controller: function($scope, title){
    $scope.title = title;
  }
})

Learn more about how resolved dependencies are inherited down to child states

Attach Custom Data to State Objects

You can attach custom data to the state object (we recommend using a data property to avoid conflicts).

// Example shows an object-based state and a string-based state
var contacts = { 
    name: 'contacts',
    templateUrl: 'contacts.html',
    data: {
        customData1: 5,
        customData2: "blue"
    }  
}
$stateProvider
  .state(contacts)
  .state('contacts.list', {
    templateUrl: 'contacts.list.html',
    data: {
        customData1: 44,
        customData2: "red"
    } 
  })

With the above example states you could access the data like this:

function Ctrl($state){
    console.log($state.current.data.customData1) // outputs 5;
    console.log($state.current.data.customData2) // outputs "blue";
}

onEnter and onExit callbacks

There are also optional 'onEnter' and 'onExit' callbacks that get called when a state becomes active and inactive respectively. The callbacks also have access to all the resolved dependencies.

$stateProvider.state("contacts", {
  template: '<h1>{{title}}</h1>',
  resolve: { title: 'My Contacts' },
  controller: function($scope, title){
    $scope.title = 'My Contacts';
  },
  onEnter: function(title){
    if(title){ ... do something ... }
  },
  onExit: function(title){
    if(title){ ... do something ... }
  }
})

State Change Events

All these events are fired at the $rootScope level.

  • $stateChangeStart - fired when the transition begins.
$scope.$on('$stateChangeStart', 
function(event, toState, toParams, fromState, fromParams){ ... })

Note: This is the only state change event that can be prevented.

$scope.$on('$stateChangeStart', 
function(event, toState, toParams, fromState, fromParams){ 
    event.preventDefault(); 
    // transitionTo() promise will be rejected with 
    // a 'transition prevented' error
})
  • $stateChangeSuccess - fired once the state transition is complete.
$scope.$on('$stateChangeSuccess', 
function(event, toState, toParams, fromState, fromParams){ ... })
  • $stateChangeError - fired when an error occurs during transition.
$scope.$on('$stateChangeError', 
function(event, toState, toParams, fromState, fromParams, error){ ... })

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