As I develop my website using AngularJS, one of my main goals is to create a smooth navigation experience without the annoying "browser flash" effect that occurs when switching between pages. This means that clicking on a link in index.html to go to foo.html should be seamless. Additionally, I desire clean URLs like mysite.com/foo, where the content from foo.html is displayed.
While Angular's client-side routing in HTML5 mode can address these requirements effectively, there are some exceptions to consider:
If I visit mysite.com, I can configure $routeProvider to direct the view to the appropriate partials (such as index.html or foo.html) and adjust the URL displayed in the browser. However, typing mysite.com/foo directly into the browser's address bar may result in a 404 error because the server expects something at mysite.com/foo/ instead. This issue also arises if I refresh the page while Angular is pointing to mysite.com/foo.
In summary, navigating to mysite.com/foo only works correctly when done within the Angular app.
How can this situation be handled so that my website functions according to my preferences? Should I incorporate PHP and/or mod_rewrite to redirect the browser back to mysite.com upon encountering a 404 error?
In simple terms, I want the URL mysite.com/foo to display both the mysite.com view and the foo.html partial, regardless of whether the URL is generated by Angular or manually entered into the browser's address bar.