Angular $state.go {reload: true} shouldn't reinitialize the abstract parent controller

I’m using ui-route for navigation.
I have father state called main, it’s an abstract state (the url: /main) and child states products and users (urls: /main/products and /main/users).

app.config(["$stateProvider", "$urlRouterProvider",
  function($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider) {
    $urlRouterProvider.otherwise("/main/products");
    $stateProvider
      .state("main", {
        url:"/main",
        templateUrl: "main.html",
        abstract: true,
        controller: "MainCtrl",
      })
      .state("main.products", {
        templateUrl: "products.html",
        controller: "productsCtrl",
      })
      .state("main.users", {
        templateUrl: "users.html",
        controller: "usersCtrl",
      })
  }
]);

And here my controllers:

app.controller('MainCtrl', function($scope,$state) {
  console.log("I'm Main controller")

  $scope.goToProduct = function()
  {
    //$state.go("main.products",{})
    $state.go("main.products",{},{reload:true})
  }

  $scope.goToUsers = function()
  {
    //$state.go("main.users",{})
    $state.go("main.users",{},{reload:true})
  }

});

app.controller('usersCtrl', function() {
  console.log("I'm users controller")

});

app.controller('productsCtrl', function() {
  console.log("I'm products controller")
});

The HTML:

<ul>
  <li style="cursor:pointer"  ng-click="goToProduct()">Click for products</li>
  <li style="cursor:pointer" ng-click="goToUsers()">Click for users</li>
</ul>

<br>
<div style="font-size:28px" ui-view></div>

As you can see, I’m using: $state.go(“main.products”,{},{reload:true}) for navigation

When I’m clicking on users/products on the menu the MainCtrl reinitialize!!
It’s because the {reload:true}.

My questions:
1) Why the “father” state controller also reinitialize on each click?
2) I need an elegant solution to avoid the MainCtrl to reinitialize!

Here is the complete example – plunker please look at the console.

Answer

Update your ui-router to newer version (0.2.14 at least)
Change $state.go call to something like this $state.go("main.users",{},{reload: "main.users"})

Since ui-router 0.2.14 you can pass string as reload value – ui router will refresh state that matches to passed string and all its children.