The Right Way to Do Tab Navigation in AngularJS / Bootstrap

Question

I want to set up tab based navigation for a web site using AngularJs and Bootstrap and I want to do it the 'right' way. As far as I can tell the 'right' way to set up an angular site is via the AngularJS Seed. I implemented this and what I got as a templated multi file tab site with the following basic ingredients.

With Angular

index.html:

  <ul class="nav nav-tabs">
     <li  class="active"><a href="#/view1">Home</a></li>
     <li><a href="#/view2">Menu 1</a></li>
  </ul>

  <div ng-view></div>
  <div>Angular seed app: v<span app-version></span></div>

view1.js:

'use strict';

angular.module('myApp.view1', ['ngRoute'])

.config(['$routeProvider', function($routeProvider) {
  $routeProvider.when('/view1', {
    templateUrl: 'view1/view1.html',
    controller: 'View1Ctrl'
  });
}])

.controller('View1Ctrl', [function() {

}]);

view1.html:

<div>here's some html</div>

...for view2.

With Bootstrap

As far as I can tell the 'right' way to implement tabs with bootstrap is as follows:

index.html:

<div class="container">

<div id="content">
    <ul id="tabs" class="nav nav-tabs" data-tabs="tabs">
        <li class="active"><a href="#red" data-toggle="tab">Red</a></li>
        <li><a href="#orange" data-toggle="tab">Orange</a></li>
        <li><a href="#yellow" data-toggle="tab">Yellow</a></li>
        <li><a href="#green" data-toggle="tab">Green</a></li>
        <li><a href="#blue" data-toggle="tab">Blue</a></li>
    </ul>
    <div id="my-tab-content" class="tab-content">
        <div class="tab-pane active" id="red">
            <h1>Red</h1>
            <p>red red red red red red</p>
        </div>
        <div class="tab-pane" id="orange">
            <h1>Orange</h1>
            <p>orange orange orange orange orange</p>
        </div>
        <div class="tab-pane" id="yellow">
            <h1>Yellow</h1>
            <p>yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow</p>
        </div>
        <div class="tab-pane" id="green">
            <h1>Green</h1>
            <p>green green green green green</p>
        </div>
        <div class="tab-pane" id="blue">
            <h1>Blue</h1>
            <p>blue blue blue blue blue</p>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

After lots of messing around I still can't seem to get the boot strap functionality, using Angulars templated model. Can anyone advise me on the 'right' way to do this?

Solution 1

Take a look at UI Bootstrap. It's essentially Bootstrap components built with Angular directives. There's a Tabs directive that will simplify what you're trying to accomplish.

Solution 2

Give every tab a <div> and a condition. In the controller, initialize the tabset and fetch the correct tab from the routeparameters.

So, your page looks like this:

<div ng-if="vm.showTab2">

and your controller (simplified):

var vm = this;
vm.showTab1 = true;
vm.showTab2 = false;

vm.ToggleTab = function(tabId) {
    vm.showTab1 = tabId === ShowTab1;
    vm.showTab2 = tabId === ShowTab2;
    ...
}
...
init();
function init() {
    // Get the tabID parameter from the URL (via $routeParams)
    var tabId = $routeParams.tabId;
    if (tabId !== undefined) {
        vm.ToggleTab(tabId);
    }
    ...
}

Your routing:

.config(['$routeProvider', function($routeProvider) {
 $routeProvider.when('/view:tabId', {
   templateUrl: 'view1/view.html',
   controller: 'ViewCtrl'
 });
}])

And pass the right tabId in your url: '#view/2' (where 2 === ShowTab2).