Delaying AngularJS route change until model loaded to prevent flicker

📝 Tech Blog Post: Preventing Flicker in AngularJS by Delaying Route Change

Are you tired of seeing annoying flickering screens when navigating between routes in your AngularJS application? 🔄 Fear not! In this post, we'll dive into the common issue of flickering screens upon route change and provide you with easy-to-implement solutions to prevent this pesky problem. Let's get started! 😎

The Flickering Dilemma

Have you ever come across websites, like Gmail, where the new page is only shown after all the necessary data has been fetched? This approach ensures that the user doesn't see an incomplete page while waiting for the data to load. In AngularJS, achieving such behavior requires a bit of extra effort, but it's totally worth it.

The Solution: Delayed Route Change

To delay the display of a new route until the corresponding model and its data have been fetched, follow these steps:

1. Define a resolve property in your route configuration object, specifying a promise for each model that needs to be fetched. For example:

   // Route configuration $routeProvider.when('/projects', { templateUrl: 'project_index.html', controller: 'ProjectsController', resolve: { projects: function(ProjectService) { return ProjectService.query().$promise; } } });

   Here, we are using the resolve property to define a promise for the projects model, which will be fetched before the new route is displayed.

2. In the controller associated with the route, inject the resolved models as dependencies and perform any necessary initialization before the view is rendered. For example:

   // ProjectsController app.controller('ProjectsController', function($scope, projects) { $scope.projects = projects; // Perform any necessary initialization });

   This controller will only execute once the projects promise has been resolved, guaranteeing that the necessary data is available before rendering the view.

Bonus Tip: Handling Route Change Errors

Sometimes, fetching models can fail due to network issues or other external factors. To gracefully handle such errors, you can add an error handler to the promise returned by the service. For example:

ProjectService.query().$promise
  .then(function(projects) {
    // Handle successful fetching
  })
  .catch(function(error) {
    // Handle error
  });

By catching errors, you can display friendly error messages or redirect the user to an error page, ensuring a smooth user experience even in the face of adversity. 🚀

Join the Flicker-Free Movement

Now that you know how to prevent flickering screens in your AngularJS application, why not share this knowledge with your fellow developers? Spread the word and let's make the web smoother and more enjoyable for everyone! 💪💻

Do you have any other tricks or tips for enhancing user experience in AngularJS? We'd love to hear from you in the comments below! Let's keep the conversation going and level up our web development skills together. Happy coding! 🎉