Yes, instead of loading and keeping state of your UI inside your controllers, you should keep the state in a service. That means, if you are doing this:
app.config(function($routeProvider){
$routeProvider.when('/', {
controller: 'MainCtrl'
}).when('/another', {
controller: 'SideCtrl'
});
});
app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope){
$scope.formData = {};
$scope./* other scope stuff that deal with with your current page*/
$http.get(/* init some data */);
});
you should change your initialization code to your service, and the state there as well, this way you can keep state between multiple views:
app.factory('State', function(){
$http.get(/* init once per app */);
return {
formData:{},
};
});
app.config(function($routeProvider){
$routeProvider.when('/', {
controller: 'MainCtrl'
}).when('/another', {
controller: 'SideCtrl'
});
});
app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope, State){
$scope.formData = State.formData;
$scope./* other scope stuff that deal with with your current page*/
});
app.controller('SideCtrl', function($scope, State){
$scope.formData = State.formData; // same state from MainCtrl
});
app.directive('myDirective', function(State){
return {
controller: function(){
State.formData; // same state!
}
};
});
when you go back and forth your views, their state will be preserved, because your service is a singleton, that was initialized when you first injected it in your controller.
There's also the new ui.router, that has a state machine, it's a low level version of $routeProvider and you can fine grain persist state using $stateProvider, but it's currently experimental (and will ship on angular 1.3)
