Effective ways to engage with a window that is supervised by a different controller?

Question

Effective ways to engage with a window that is supervised by a different controller?

Although the question may appear vague initially, I struggled to find a better way to convey my idea. Let me elaborate on it in detail.

In my SPA application, I have MasterController connected to the <html> tag. This MasterController consists of all the logic and models required to control the following UI elements:

Page title (<title> tag)
Subheader displaying the current page's title (such as Customers, Orders, Settings, etc.)
Name of the currently logged-in user
Some commonly used action buttons that apply to all pages in the system. Specifically, these buttons are Show filters, Export data to Excel, and Add new record.

While managing the first two items can be achieved by detecting the current ui-router state (using its $stateChangeSuccess event), handling the last two (username and buttons) poses some challenges, especially the buttons.

I can handle button actions using $broadcast so that every controller is notified of clicks on any button. However, the complexity arises when different combinations of buttons are required for various pages - one page may need all buttons while another might not need any.

For example, when the CustomersController is loaded by ui-router, the MasterController receives the $stateChangeSuccess event and automatically hides all buttons by default.

How can CustomersController communicate to MasterController that it requires two specific buttons from the start?

Theoretically, I could utilize $emit from CustomersController to send an event to MasterController, but this approach seems somewhat inelegant. Events are typically used for signaling occurrences rather than making requests like "hey, MasterController, can you please display these buttons?".

Perhaps during the $stateChangeSuccess event, I could somehow determine if there are any active listeners for my button click events and then hide buttons without attached listeners. However, I am uncertain how to implement this or whether it will function as intended - particularly concerning detachment of old listeners when ui-router refreshes the view with another controller.

javascript angularjs events view controller

Answer 1

Answer №1

When nesting controllers, their scopes utilize prototypical inheritance. You can create a function called $scope.configureButtons in the MasterController and then invoke this function from the nested CustomerController's $scope.

If controllers are not nested, you may need to use $rootScope.$broadcast to set up your buttons.

Answer 2

When nesting controllers, their scopes utilize prototypical inheritance. You can create a function called $scope.configureButtons in the MasterController and then invoke this function from the nested CustomerController's $scope.

If controllers are not nested, you may need to use $rootScope.$broadcast to set up your buttons.

Answer 3

Answer №2

Have you considered the possibility of utilizing separate controllers for each specific view? One approach could be to create a more generalized CustomerController and then extend or specialize it as needed for different button combinations. Relying on the $stateChangeSuccess event may seem like bypassing the benefits of polymorphism in this scenario.

Answer 4

Have you considered the possibility of utilizing separate controllers for each specific view? One approach could be to create a more generalized CustomerController and then extend or specialize it as needed for different button combinations. Relying on the $stateChangeSuccess event may seem like bypassing the benefits of polymorphism in this scenario.

Answer 5

Answer №3

After reading @Diego Castaño Chillarón's answer, I was inspired to explore a new idea. I wondered if it was possible to use ui-router to swap controllers in an existing view and have the $scope rebind as well. Additionally, could I still replace inner parts of the loaded view?

I discovered that indeed it can be done! Now, I no longer need to manage common view fragments from the master control, nor do I have to inherit or duplicate them - I can simply switch the controller to the required one using ui-router.

Here is how:

$stateProvider
    .state("customers", {
            url: "^/customers",
            views: {
                "controller": {
                    controller: "CustomerController as cntrlr"
                },                                    
                "page@customers": // <- this is important, absolute name required for ui-router to find nested view
                {
                    templateUrl: "customers"
                }
            }
        }) // other routes follow in the same manner

And my HTML code looks like this:

<div id="routes-root" ui-view="controller">

  <div id="content-header-buttons">
      <button type="button" ng-click="master.toggleFilter()">Filter data</button>
      <button type="button" ng-click="cntrlr.exportClicked()">Export</button>
      <button type="button" ng-click="cntrlr.createNewClicked()">Create</button>
   </div>
    <div id="view-content" ui-view="page"></div>
</div>

In this setup, the master controller now only controls the visibility of the filters block, which remains constant.

The controller itself is attached to the #routes-root element, maintaining the inner content. Ui-router (or Angular) handles attaching the $scope and cntrlr variable to the loaded controller. Subsequently, when loading the inner view into #view-content, it also becomes attached to the already loaded controller.

Answer 6

After reading @Diego Castaño Chillarón's answer, I was inspired to explore a new idea. I wondered if it was possible to use ui-router to swap controllers in an existing view and have the $scope rebind as well. Additionally, could I still replace inner parts of the loaded view?

I discovered that indeed it can be done! Now, I no longer need to manage common view fragments from the master control, nor do I have to inherit or duplicate them - I can simply switch the controller to the required one using ui-router.

Here is how:

$stateProvider
    .state("customers", {
            url: "^/customers",
            views: {
                "controller": {
                    controller: "CustomerController as cntrlr"
                },                                    
                "page@customers": // <- this is important, absolute name required for ui-router to find nested view
                {
                    templateUrl: "customers"
                }
            }
        }) // other routes follow in the same manner

And my HTML code looks like this:

<div id="routes-root" ui-view="controller">

  <div id="content-header-buttons">
      <button type="button" ng-click="master.toggleFilter()">Filter data</button>
      <button type="button" ng-click="cntrlr.exportClicked()">Export</button>
      <button type="button" ng-click="cntrlr.createNewClicked()">Create</button>
   </div>
    <div id="view-content" ui-view="page"></div>
</div>

In this setup, the master controller now only controls the visibility of the filters block, which remains constant.

The controller itself is attached to the #routes-root element, maintaining the inner content. Ui-router (or Angular) handles attaching the $scope and cntrlr variable to the loaded controller. Subsequently, when loading the inner view into #view-content, it also becomes attached to the already loaded controller.

Effective ways to engage with a window that is supervised by a different controller?

Answer №1

Answer №2

Answer №3

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