AngularJS UI Router - change url without reloading state

Simply you can use $state.transitionTo instead of $state.go . $state.go calls $state.transitionTo internally but automatically sets options to { location: true, inherit: true, relative: $state.$current, notify: true } . You can call $state.transitionTo and set notify: false . For example:

$state.go('.detail', {id: newId}) 

can be replaced by

$state.transitionTo('.detail', {id: newId}, {
    location: true,
    inherit: true,
    relative: $state.$current,
    notify: false
})

Edit: As suggested by fracz it can simply be:

$state.go('.detail', {id: newId}, {notify: false}) 

Ok, solved :) Angular UI Router has this new method, $urlRouterProvider.deferIntercept() https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router/issues/64

basically it comes down to this:

angular.module('myApp', [ui.router])
  .config(['$urlRouterProvider', function ($urlRouterProvider) {
    $urlRouterProvider.deferIntercept();
  }])
  // then define the interception
  .run(['$rootScope', '$urlRouter', '$location', '$state', function ($rootScope, $urlRouter, $location, $state) {
    $rootScope.$on('$locationChangeSuccess', function(e, newUrl, oldUrl) {
      // Prevent $urlRouter's default handler from firing
      e.preventDefault();

      /** 
       * provide conditions on when to 
       * sync change in $location.path() with state reload.
       * I use $location and $state as examples, but
       * You can do any logic
       * before syncing OR stop syncing all together.
       */

      if ($state.current.name !== 'main.exampleState' || newUrl === 'http://some.url' || oldUrl !=='https://another.url') {
        // your stuff
        $urlRouter.sync();
      } else {
        // don't sync
      }
    });
    // Configures $urlRouter's listener *after* your custom listener
    $urlRouter.listen();
  }]);

I think this method is currently only included in the master version of angular ui router, the one with optional parameters (which are nice too, btw). It needs to be cloned and built from source with

grunt build

The docs are accessible from the source as well, through

grunt ngdocs

(they get built into the /site directory) // more info in README.MD

There seems to be another way to do this, by dynamic parameters (which I haven't used). Many credits to nateabele.

---

As a sidenote, here are optional parameters in Angular UI Router's $stateProvider, which I used in combination with the above:

angular.module('myApp').config(['$stateProvider', function ($stateProvider) {    

  $stateProvider
    .state('main.doorsList', {
      url: 'doors',
      controller: DoorsListCtrl,
      resolve: DoorsListCtrl.resolve,
      templateUrl: '/modules/doors/doors-list.html'
    })
    .state('main.doorsSingle', {
      url: 'doors/:doorsSingle/:doorsDetail',
      params: {
        // as of today, it was unclear how to define a required parameter (more below)
        doorsSingle: {value: null},
        doorsDetail: {value: null}
      },
      controller: DoorsSingleCtrl,
      resolve: DoorsSingleCtrl.resolve,
      templateUrl: '/modules/doors/doors-single.html'
    });

}]);

what that does is it allows to resolve a state, even if one of the params is missing. SEO is one purpose, readability another.

In the example above, I wanted doorsSingle to be a required parameter. It is not clear how to define those. It works ok with multiple optional parameters though, so not really a problem. The discussion is here https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router/pull/1032#issuecomment-49196090

After spending a lot of time with this issue, Here is what I got working

$state.go('stateName',params,{
    // prevent the events onStart and onSuccess from firing
    notify:false,
    // prevent reload of the current state
    reload:false, 
    // replace the last record when changing the params so you don't hit the back button and get old params
    location:'replace', 
    // inherit the current params on the url
    inherit:true
});