angular ui-router states with multiple views & controller instantiation

Question

Ok, I have a reasonable amount of experience with angular and ui-router, but I'm running into an issue when it comes to the architecture of my app. I have some states like:

main.module.js

.state('main', {
    abstract: true,
    controller: 'MainCtrl',
    template: '<div ui-view />'
}).state('main.clients', {
    url: '/clients/:id',
    views: {
        list: {controller: 'ClientListCtrl', templateUrl: 'client-list.html'},
        detail: {controller: 'ClientDetailCtrl', templateUrl: 'client-detail.html'}
    }
}.state('main.services', {
    url: '/services/:id',
    views: {
        list: {...},
        detail: {...}
    }
}

main.html

<div>
    <div ui-view='list'></div>
    <div ui-view='detail'></div>
</div>

client-list.html

<ul>
    <li data-ng-click='$state.go('main.clients({id: client.id})' 
        data-ng-repeat='client in clients'>
        {{client.name}}
    </li>
</ul>

This all seems to work fine, and views are populated as I would expect. My main question is, when I'm in the main.clients state and a user clicks on the client name, the $state.go(...) fires, it re-initializes the ClientListCtrl and ClientDetailCtrl , even though the state didn't actually change (well, the :id portion of the url did) .

Am I misusing multiple views? Would a change of architecture be advisable? Just trying to wrap my head around how to structure this in the most efficient way, and the controller re-initialization doesn't seem like it's necessary in this case, but I'm probably missing something. Thanks!

Answer 1

Reload on state or its param change is what we want (I would say) in 99% cases. New params would mean different list/detail.

But there is a setting:

reloadOnSearch

Boolean (default true) . If false will not retrigger the same state just because a search/query parameter has changed. Useful for when you'd like to modify $location.search() without triggering a reload.

I created an example here showing how to turn of the reload on search.

• State changes do trigger reload,
• params changes do not

snippet:

  .state('index', {
      url: '/index/:area',
      ...
    })
    .state('index.detail', {
      url: '/detail/:id',
      reloadOnSearch : false,
      ...

Would say, that the default behaviour is what we need, even with resolvers. But ... check that change in action here