How to achieve that "ui-sref" be conditionally executed?

I want to validate certain condition before the browser follow the link dynamically created by ui-router.

I was looking into $rootscope.$on('$stateChangeStart', ..) but I have no access to the controller.$scope from there. I also need to use this in several places in the application and would be cumbersome.

Keep in mind that ui-sref is linked to ui-sref-active (work together), so i can't remove ui-sref and, by say, to use $state.$go('some-state') inside a function called with ng-click.

The condition should be evaluated inside a $scope function and on on-click event (before-transition with the ability to cancel it)

I need something like this:

<li ui-sref-active="active">
      <a ui-sref="somestate" ui-sref-if="model.validate()">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

I tried:

<li ui-sref-active="active">
      <a ui-sref="somestate" ng-click="$event.preventDefault()">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

<li ui-sref-active="active">
      <a ui-sref="somestate" ng-click="$event.stopImmediatePropagation()">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

And

<li ui-sref-active="active">
    <a ui-sref="somestate">
       <span ng-click="$event.stopPropagation();">Go Somestate</span>
    </a>
</li>

Even

<li ui-sref-active="active">
      <a ui-sref="somestate" onclick="return false;">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

But does not work.

SANDBOX

This answer inspired me to create a directive that allows me to interrupt the chain of events that end up changing state. For convenience and other uses also prevents the execution of ng-click on the same element.

javascript

module.directive('eatClickIf', ['$parse', '$rootScope',
  function($parse, $rootScope) {
    return {
      // this ensure eatClickIf be compiled before ngClick
      priority: 100,
      restrict: 'A',
      compile: function($element, attr) {
        var fn = $parse(attr.eatClickIf);
        return {
          pre: function link(scope, element) {
            var eventName = 'click';
            element.on(eventName, function(event) {
              var callback = function() {
                if (fn(scope, {$event: event})) {
                  // prevents ng-click to be executed
                  event.stopImmediatePropagation();
                  // prevents href 
                  event.preventDefault();
                  return false;
                }
              };
              if ($rootScope.$$phase) {
                scope.$evalAsync(callback);
              } else {
                scope.$apply(callback);
              }
            });
          },
          post: function() {}
        }
      }
    }
  }
]);

html

<li ui-sref-active="active">
      <a ui-sref="somestate" eat-click-if="!model.isValid()">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

PLUNKER

You can use a scope function that will either returns :

• no state

• an existing state

  like so :

HTML :

<li ui-sref-active="active">
      <a ui-sref="{{checkCondition()}}">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

JS scope :

$scope.checkCondition = function() {
    return model.validate()
        ? 'someState'
        : '-' // hack: must return a non-empty string to prevent JS console error
}

href attribute will be created only when the function returns an existing state string.

Alternatively, you could do a (ugly) :

<li ui-sref-active="active">
      <a ui-sref="somestate" ng-if="model.validate()">Go Somestate</a>
      <span ng-if="!model.validate()">Go Somestate</span>
</li>

Hope this helps

The easiest workaround to conditionally achieve routing without tinkering with directives, scope etc was a workaround i found here - https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-router/issues/1489

<a ui-sref="{{condition ? '.childState' : '.'}}"> Conditional Link </a>

You can always double up on the element and show/hide conditionally

    <li ui-sref-active="active">
          <a ng-show="condition1" style="color: grey">Start</a>
          <a ng-hide="condition1" ui-sref="start">Start</a>
    </li>

http://plnkr.co/edit/ts4yGW?p=preview

No need for complicated directives or hacks. The following works fine and allows for specific handling on click of non-sref items:

<a 
  ng-repeat="item in items" ui-sref="{{item.sref || '-'}}" 
  ng-click="$ctrl.click(item, $event)"
>...</a>

And in the controller, a simple click handler for the items which don't have an item.sref:

this.click = function(item, event) {
  if (!item.sref) {
    event.preventDefault();
    //do something else
  }
};

Based on the answers to How to dynamically set the value of ui-sref you can create a function in your scope for building the URL:

$scope.buildUrl = function() {
  return $state.href('somestate', {someParam: 'someValue});
};

And then conditionally append it to the link with ng-href

<a ng-href="{{ someCondition ? buildUrl() : undefined }}">Link</a>

As you can see in the demo below, ng-href does not add the href attribute if value is negative.

angular.module('app', [])

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.23/angular.min.js"></script>
<div ng-app="app">
  <a ng-href="{{ condition ? 'http://thecatapi.com/api/images/get?format=src&type=gif' : undefined}}">This is the link</a>
  <br>
  <label for="checkbox">
    <input type="checkbox" id="checkbox" ng-model="condition">
    Link active?
  </label>
</div>

I know this is an old question, but for future reference I wanted to offer an alternative solution since I didn't see it in any of the answers so far.

Desired:

<li ui-sref-active="active">
    <a ui-sref="somestate" ui-sref-if="model.validate()">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

Potential solution (template):

<li ng-class="{ active: state.current.name === 'somestate' }">
    <a ng-click="navigateToState()">Go Somestate</a>
</li>

And in the controller:

$scope.state = $state;
$scope.navigateToState = navigateToState;

function navigateToState() {
  if ($scope.model.valid) {
    $state.go('somestate');
  }
}

Possible solution for those who still need ng-click working on ui-sref component or its parents.

My solution is to use href instead of ui-sref and to modify Emanuel's directive a bit to be able to stop href and ng-click calls separately.

Planker.

Though it has a few restrictions:

• will not work with ui-sref

• you should have different urls for each state because of previous restriction

• ui-sref-active will not work either

For the binary case (link is either enabled or disabled), it "now" (since ~2018) works like this (prevents the click and sets it to disabled):

<a ui-sref="go" ng-disabled="true">nogo</a>

and for other tags as well:

<span ui-sref="go" ng-disabled="true">nogo</span>