AngularJS: How to Update ng-view using $route.reload()

Question

I have searched through a lot of questions regarding $route.reload() and I think I still have a fundamental misunderstanding of how it and Angular are actually working. I really want to understand what is actually going on (not just a quick fix) so I apologize if this question gets rather verbose.

I am trying to create an app that will allow the user to input information into a form and then use ng-view and a controller LivePreviewController to display that form data in a "live preview" of the form which has some unique styling and other information associated with the form that the user does not input themselves.

This is very simple to do if the "live preview" is occurring on the same page as the user is inputting information using something like this

<input type="text" ng-model="form_name" />
<div ng-bind="form_name"></div>

What I would like to do is something like this.

<!--Location is: localhost:8888/form_page.html -->
<input type="text" ng-model="form_name" />

<!-- ng view is displaying the partial view: styled_form.html -->
<div ng-view></div>

Then I have another page styled_form.html which is the partial view that gets displayed by the ng-view div.

<!-- partial view page is styled_form.html -->
<div ng-bind="form_name"></div>

Both of these pages are controlled by the same controller LivePreviewController.

There are a lot of things I imagine that I am probably doing incorrectly. First thing could be the routing. I had some issues with the routing as app is only used on one page of a multi-page website my routes are setup as follows.

var previewApp = angular.module('previewApp', ['ngRoute']);
previewApp.config(['$routeProvider', function($routeProvider){
    $routeProvider
        .otherwise({
            redirectTo:'/styled_view.html',
            controller: 'LivePreviewController'
        });
}]);

//Controller Code

previewApp.controller('LivePreviewController', [$scope, $route, function($scope, $route){
    $scope.form_name = 'temporary name';
}]);

All of this works as expected when the form_page.html is originally loaded, but when the user changes the name in the text input the ng-view displaying my styled_form.html page is not changed. This also makes sense because the styled_form.html needs to be reloaded with the new information.

Here is where the noob starts. My first inclination was to create a refresh button and add a function in my LivePreviewController to refresh the page using $route.reload()

previewApp.controller('LivePreviewController', [$scope, $route, function($scope, $route){
    $scope.form_name = 'temporary name';

    $scope.refreshPage = function() {
        $route.reload();
        console.log($scope.form_name) //to ensure scope is updating
    };

}]);

And then updated my html to include the button as follows

<!--Location is: localhost:8888/form_page.html -->
<input type="text" ng-model="form_name" />

<button ng-click="refreshPage()"> Update the Page </button>

<!-- ng view is displaying the partial view: styled_form.html -->
<div ng-view></div>

The function is working just fine when the button is clicked and the updated scope variable is displaying in the console, but my live preview is not updating. After looking through the Angular documentation I have a hunch as to what is happening. It states...

Causes $route service to reload the current route even if $location hasn't changed.

As a result of that, ngView creates new scope and re-instantiates the controller.

So if I understand the docs correctly, which I obviously don't, what is actually happening on $route.reload() is that when styled_form.html is getting reloaded the updated $scope.form_name is getting wiped out and the original $scope value is getting shown on the page. So...

Question 1: am I understanding this correctly i.e. is $route.reload() wiping out my $scope and reloading the old $scope variable, or is my $route.reload() just not reloading the page at all?

Now if I am interpreting my issue correctly my guess (seen suggested on here in other topics) is that the solution would be to create some type of service to store my data and then call that service inside of the controller. This workflow would look like

User input --> Data stored in some Service(factory) --> Data Passed to $scope --> >$scope value displayed in partial view (styled_form.html)

But I am lost as to how to dynamically store the user input inside of a service. Ideally this would all occur in realtime (as with the simple first example) as I would like to avoid having a refresh button. Could this be accomplished by creating a function in my controller that updates the values inside my service every few seconds? I need someone with better ideas than myself to point me in the right direction.

Question 2: Is this the correct workflow assuming Q1 is correct and if so what is the correct way to set up my service to handle the user input and pass it to another html page dynamically?

All help much appreciated

stackoverflow.com/questions/21816722/…

GANI
– GANI

2016-09-21 22:29:47 +00:00
Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 22:29 — GANI
– GANI, Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 22:29

Vladimir M · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-21 22:41:44Z

1

Having a service to store data and same controller to serve both view is fine.

Data saving could be done each time, when controller variables are changing.

When new controller is initialized, it my read the date from the service. A separate controller instance will be created for each view.

You may also check this blog to see, how data should be defined within a service, so that changing such data will auto-trigger controller to update view:

http://viralpatel.net/blogs/angularjs-service-factory-tutorial/

Notice: that service returns a reference to the array and controller saves this reference, when it is created.

edited Sep 21, 2016 at 22:41

answered Sep 21, 2016 at 22:18

Vladimir M

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Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

Ok so I realized my problem was due to the fact that I was misunderstanding how $scope works in Angular not how $route.reload() was working. This topic

$scope variable not changing in controller when changed using directive

and this link in that question

https://github.com/angular/angular.js/wiki/Understanding-Scopes

helped me understand what I was doing wrong. $route.reload() and $templateCache.remove() were working correctly. The problem was that my $scope variable wasn't updating properly because each view was creating a different scope. Paraphrasing one of the links

The $scope is not the model.

The function of the controller is to write from the model to the scope

The function of the view is to display the $scope and write to the model if needed

I solved the problem using the controllerAS syntax discussed in the answers like this,

.controller('LivePreviewController',['$scope', function($scope) {
    var vm = this;
    vm.form_name = 'temporary name';
}]);

<!-- form_page.html -->
<div ng-controller="LivePreviewController as ctrl">
    <input type="text" ng-model="ctrl.form_name>

And in my styled form partial view

<!-- styled_form.html -->
<div> {{ctrl.form_name}} </div>

This causes everything to work as expected

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