The ui-router transitions are there for state transitions. Other words, there are no transitions among views.
What we can do, is to move some named view anchors (ui-view="myName") into root or some parent state. Then each child (grand child) state can target any named view in its parent(s) hierarchy.
The best way how to understand that is to read this chapter from doc:
View Names - Relative vs. Absolute Names
And check this snippet (cite from the resource above):
$stateProvider
.state('contacts', {
// This will get automatically plugged into the unnamed ui-view
// of the parent state template. Since this is a top level state,
// its parent state template is index.html.
templateUrl: 'contacts.html'
})
.state('contacts.detail', {
views: {
////////////////////////////////////
// Relative Targeting //
// Targets parent state ui-view's //
////////////////////////////////////
// Relatively targets the 'detail' view in this state's parent state, 'contacts'.
// <div ui-view='detail'/> within contacts.html
"detail" : { },
// Relatively targets the unnamed view in this state's parent state, 'contacts'.
// <div ui-view/> within contacts.html
"" : { },
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Absolute Targeting using '@' //
// Targets any view within this state or an ancestor //
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Absolutely targets the 'info' view in this state, 'contacts.detail'.
// <div ui-view='info'/> within contacts.detail.html
"info@contacts.detail" : { }
// Absolutely targets the 'detail' view in the 'contacts' state.
// <div ui-view='detail'/> within contacts.html
"detail@contacts" : { }
// Absolutely targets the unnamed view in parent 'contacts' state.
// <div ui-view/> within contacts.html
"@contacts" : { }
// absolutely targets the 'status' view in root unnamed state.
// <div ui-view='status'/> within index.html
"status@" : { }
// absolutely targets the unnamed view in root unnamed state.
// <div ui-view/> within index.html
"@" : { }
});
Also, check this sample app (by ui-router team)
and its state defintion
small cite from the child state definition, targeting many different views:
///////////////////////
// Contacts > Detail //
///////////////////////
// You can have unlimited children within a state. Here is a second child
// state within the 'contacts' parent state.
.state('contacts.detail', {
// Urls can have parameters. They can be specified like :param or {param}.
// If {} is used, then you can also specify a regex pattern that the param
// must match. The regex is written after a colon (:). Note: Don't use capture
// groups in your regex patterns, because the whole regex is wrapped again
// behind the scenes. Our pattern below will only match numbers with a length
// between 1 and 4.
// Since this state is also a child of 'contacts' its url is appended as well.
// So its url will end up being '/contacts/{contactId:[0-9]{1,8}}'. When the
// url becomes something like '/contacts/42' then this state becomes active
// and the $stateParams object becomes { contactId: 42 }.
url: '/{contactId:[0-9]{1,4}}',
// If there is more than a single ui-view in the parent template, or you would
// like to target a ui-view from even higher up the state tree, you can use the
// views object to configure multiple views. Each view can get its own template,
// controller, and resolve data.
// View names can be relative or absolute. Relative view names do not use an '@'
// symbol. They always refer to views within this state's parent template.
// Absolute view names use a '@' symbol to distinguish the view and the state.
// So 'foo@bar' means the ui-view named 'foo' within the 'bar' state's template.
views: {
// So this one is targeting the unnamed view within the parent state's template.
'': {
templateUrl: 'app/contacts/contacts.detail.html',
controller: ['$scope', '$stateParams', 'utils',
function ( $scope, $stateParams, utils) {
$scope.contact = utils.findById($scope.contacts, $stateParams.contactId);
}]
},
// This one is targeting the ui-view="hint" within the unnamed root, aka index.html.
// This shows off how you could populate *any* view within *any* ancestor state.
'hint@': {
template: 'This is contacts.detail populating the "hint" ui-view'
},
// This one is targeting the ui-view="menu" within the parent state's template.
'menuTip': {
// templateProvider is the final method for supplying a template.
// There is: template, templateUrl, and templateProvider.
templateProvider: ['$stateParams',
function ( $stateParams) {
// This is just to demonstrate that $stateParams injection works for templateProvider.
// $stateParams are the parameters for the new state we're transitioning to, even
// though the global '$stateParams' has not been updated yet.
return '<hr><small class="muted">Contact ID: ' + $stateParams.contactId + '</small>';
}]
}
}
})
some other reading with more links
