title: Angular ui-router: Can you change state without changing URL?
body: <p>The <em>multiple nested views</em> functionality of the <code>ui-router</code> is very nice - you can easily jump from one <em>state</em> of your app to another.</p>
  
  <p>Sometimes you might want to change the URL, but sometimes not.  I feel like the concept of <em>state</em> should be separate/optional from <em>routing</em>.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://plnkr.co/edit/gcXFfG?p=preview">Here's a plunker that shows what I mean.</a>  This is a fork of one of the plunkers in the <code>ui-router</code> documentation, with 2 minor changes noted below:</p>
  
  <pre><code>.state('route1', {
          url: "/route", // &lt;---- URL IS SHARED WITH ROUTE2
          views: {
              "viewA": {
                  template: "route1.viewA"
              },
              "viewB": {
                  template: "route1.viewB"
              }
          }
      })
      .state('route2', {
          url: "/route", // &lt;---- URL IS SHARED WITH ROUTE1
          views: {
              "viewA": {
                  template: "route2.viewA"
              },
              "viewB": {
                  template: "route2.viewB"
              }
          }
      })
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This seems to work - the URL stays the same.  Again, how much redundant work is done here?  Is this an approved/tested usage?</p>
  
  <p>It would be nice if you could omit the <code>url</code> from a state..</p>
  
  <h3>UPDATE:  You <em>can</em> omit a url from a state. <a href="http://plnkr.co/edit/e8GDdw?p=preview">plunker</a></h3>
  
  <p>Update question:  Is this an approved/tested usage?</p>