# Tutorial: 7 - Routing & Multiple Views

In this step, you will learn how to create a layout template and how to build an app that has multiple views by adding routing.

Note that you are redirected to `app/index.html#/phones` and the same phone list appears in the browser. When you click on a phone link the stub of a phone detail page is displayed.

The most important changes are listed below. You can see the full diff on GitHub:

### Multiple Views, Routing and Layout Template

Our app is slowly growing and becoming more complex. Before step 7, the app provided our users with a single view (the list of all phones), and all of the template code was located in the `index.html` file. The next step in building the app is to add a view that will show detailed information about each of the devices in our list.

To add the detailed view, we could expand the `index.html` file to contain template code for both views, but that would get messy very quickly. Instead, we are going to turn the `index.html` template into what we call a "layout template". This is a template that is common for all views in our application. Other "partial templates" are then included into this layout template depending on the current "route" â the view that is currently displayed to the user.

Application routes in angular are declared via the `$route` service. This service makes it easy to wire together controllers, view templates, and the current URL location in the browser. Using this feature we can implement deep linking, which lets us utilize the browser's history (back and forward navigation) and bookmarks.

### Controllers

`app/js/controller.js`:

    function PhoneCatCtrl($route) {
      var self = this;

      $route.when('/phones',
          {template: 'partials/phone-list.html',   controller: PhoneListCtrl});
      $route.when('/phones/:phoneId',
          {template: 'partials/phone-detail.html', controller: PhoneDetailCtrl});
      $route.otherwise({redirectTo: '/phones'});

      $route.onChange(function() {
        self.params = $route.current.params;
      });

      $route.parent(this);
    }

    //PhoneCatCtrl.$inject = ['$route'];
    ...

We created a new controller called `PhoneCatCtrl`. We declared its dependency on the `$route` service and used this service to declare that our application consists of two different views:

- The phone list view will be shown when the URL hash fragment is `/phones`. To construct this view, angular will use the `phone-list.html` template and the `PhoneListCtrl` controller.

- The phone details view will be shown when the URL hash fragment matches '/phone/:phoneId', where `:phoneId` is a variable part of the URL. To construct the phone details view, angular will use the `phone-detail.html` template and the `PhoneDetailCtrl` controller.

We reused the `PhoneListCtrl` controller that we constructed in previous steps and we added a new, empty `PhoneDetailCtrl` controller to the `app/js/controllers.js` file for the phone details view.

The statement `$route.otherwise({redirectTo: '/phones'})` triggers a redirection to `/phones` when the browser address doesn't match either of our routes.

Thanks to the `$route.parent(this);` statement and `ng:controller="PhoneCatCtrl"` declaration in the `index.html` template, the `PhoneCatCtrl` controller has a special role in our app. It is the "root" controller and the parent controller for the other two sub-controllers (`PhoneListCtrl` and `PhoneDetailCtrl`). The sub-controllers inherit the model properties and behavior from the root controller.

Note the use of the `:phoneId` parameter in the second route declaration. The `$route` service uses the route declaration â `'/phones/:phoneId'` â as a template that is matched against the current URL. All variables defined with the `:` notation are extracted into the `$route.current.params` map.

The `params` alias created in the ``$route.onChange`` callback allows us to use the `phoneId` property of this map in the `phone-details.html` template.

### Template

The `$route` service is usually used in conjunction with the `ng:view` widget. The role of the `ng:view` widget is to include the view template for the current route into the layout template, which makes it a perfect fit for our `index.html` template.

`app/index.html`:

    ...
    <body ng:controller="PhoneCatCtrl">

      <ng:view></ng:view>

      <script src="lib/angular/angular.js" ng:autobind></script>
      <script src="js/controllers.js"></script>
    </body>
    </html>

Note that we removed most of the code in the `index.html` template and replaced it with a single line containing the `ng:view` tag. The code that we removed was placed into the `phone-list.html` template:

`app/partials/phone-list.html`:

    <ul class="predicates">
      <li>
        Search: <input type="text" name="query"/>
      </li>
      <li>
        Sort by:
        <select name="orderProp">
          <option value="name">Alphabetical</option>
          <option value="age">Newest</option>
        </select>
      </li>
    </ul>

    <ul class="phones">
      <li ng:repeat="phone in phones.$filter(query).$orderBy(orderProp)">
        <a href="#/phones/{{phone.id}}">{{phone.name}}</a>
        <a href="#/phones/{{phone.id}}" class="thumb"><img ng:src="{{phone.imageUrl}}"></a>
        <p>{{phone.snippet}}</p>
      </li>
    </ul>

We also added a placeholder template for the phone details view:

`app/partials/phone-list.html`:

    TBD: detail view for {{params.phoneId}}

Note how we are using `params` model defined in the `PhoneCatCtrl` controller.

### Test

To automatically verify that everything is wired properly, we wrote end-to-end tests that navigate to various URLs and verify that the correct view was rendered.

    ...
      it('should redirect index.html to index.html#/phones', function() {
       browser().navigateTo('../../app/index.html');
       expect(browser().location().hash()).toBe('/phones');
      });
    ...

     describe('Phone detail view', function() {

       beforeEach(function() {
          browser().navigateTo('../../app/index.html#/phones/nexus-s');
       });

       it('should display placeholder page with phoneId', function() {
          expect(binding('params.phoneId')).toBe('nexus-s');
       });
     });

You can now refresh the browser tab with the end-to-end test runner to see the tests run, or you can see them running on angular's server.

## Experiments

- Try to add an `{{orderProp}}` binding to `index.html`, and you'll see that nothing happens even when you are in the phone list view. This is because the `orderProp` model is visible only in the scope managed by `PhoneListCtrl`, which is associated with the `<ng:view>` element. If you add the same binding into the `phone-list.html` template, the binding will work as expected.

- In `PhoneCatCtrl`, create a new model called "`hero`" with `this.hero = 'Zoro'`. In `PhoneListCtrl` let's shadow it with `this.hero = 'Batman'`, and in `PhoneDetailCtrl` we'll use `this.hero = "Captain Proton"`. Then add the `<p>hero = {{hero}}</p>` to all three of our templates (`index.html`, `phone-list.html`, and `phone-detail.html`). Open the app and you'll see scope inheritance and model property shadowing do some wonders.

## Summary

With the routing set up and the phone list view implemented, we're ready to go to step 8 to implement the phone details view.