AngularJS HTML5 mode reloading page not found solution

Removing # from Angularjs application is tricky but BOSS is always right, if he don't want to see the # (hash) in URL then there is no way to keep it any more. Actually it is not too much work for anyone to set it up within 5 minute by rewriting the URL. I was playing and found it is very easy and useful. In all the supporting browsers it will show the url without hash and in older browsers which are not supporting HTML5 mode, it will show with #. Even if you will try to open a link without # in non-supporting browsers, it will automatically add it and open the page smoothly.

Before diving into the coding need to understand what it will support, so you can decide whether you need it or not

• I tested it only with UI-Router
• Supporting browsers will open without #
• Non-supporting browsers still show # in URL
• Page refresh works without any error of 404
• No coding need to do
• Just configuration will solve the problem

Much talked, let's start configuring, open the app.js or whatever the name you are using and add

$locationProvider.html5Mode(true);

//Here is the complete file
angular.module('myapp', ['ui.router'])
  .config([......., '$locationProvider', 
    function (......., $locationProvider) {    
       $locationProvider.html5Mode(true);         
        .........
}]);

If you will run the application now, it will give error $location in HTML5 mode requires a tag to be present!

So let's add the base, open index.html page and in head section add

<base href="/">

Now run the application, everything will work smooth, if your browser support html 5 mode then you can see the pages without any # in URL. If you finished playing then use the refresh button or copy the user and try to open the same URL in a new tab, and immediately it will start showing 404, page not found.

Now copy the following lines and add in web.config file

<system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
     <rules> 
      <rule name="Main Rule" stopProcessing="true">
        <match url=".*" />
        <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
          <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />                                 
          <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
        </conditions>
        <action type="Rewrite" url="/" />
      </rule>
    </rules>
    </rewrite>
</system.webServer>

If you application giving access permission error it means you have not install URL Rewrite, go ahead and install it. every thing will be fixed.

There is not step to do, but let me clarify some basic things.

If you have created virtual directory in IIS with name say Html5Routing and running application from IIS then you need to do the base url changes in two places, one in index.html page and other in web.config like this

// Index.html
<base href="/Html5Routing/">

// web.config
<action type="Rewrite" url="/Html5Routing/" />

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