fairytale about mvc, require.js and angular. is there happily ever after?

So. Once upon a time there were four magical creatures: asp.net mvc, require.js and angular. And one wise wizard decided to put them in the same house, and let for every single view of asp.net to have its own "code-behind" javascript file;

first he added to the _Layout.cshtml

 <script  data-main="/main" src="~/Scripts/require.js"></script>

and then he created main.js in the root:

require.config({
    baseUrl: "/Scripts/",
    paths: {
        'jquery': 'jquery-1.9.1.min',
        'jquery-ui': 'jquery-ui-1.10.2.custom.min',
        'angular': 'angular.min',
        'ng-grid': 'ng-grid-2.0.2.debug'
    },
    shim: {
        'jquery': { exports: "$" },
        'underscore': { exports: "_" },
        'jquery-ui': ['jquery'],
    },
});
 // Standard Libs
require(['jquery','jquery-ui','underscore','angular']);

nothing fancy and magical yet. But then he created an html helper as such:

public static MvcHtmlString RequireJs(this HtmlHelper helper)
{
    var controllerName = helper.ViewContext.RouteData.Values["Controller"].ToString(); // get the controllername 
    var viewName = Regex.Match((helper.ViewContext.View as RazorView).ViewPath, @"(?<=" + controllerName + @"\/)(.*)(?=\.cshtml)").Value; //get the ViewName - extract it from ViewPath by running regex - everything between controllerName +slash+.cshtml should be it;

// chek if file exists
    var filename = helper.ViewContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.MapPath("/Scripts/views/" + controllerName.ToLower() + "-" +
                                                                  viewName.ToLower()+".js");
    if (File.Exists(filename))
    {
        return helper.RequireJs(@"views/" + controllerName.ToLower() + "-" + viewName.ToLower());   
    }
    return new MvcHtmlString("");
}

public static MvcHtmlString RequireJs(this HtmlHelper helper, string module)
{
    var require = new StringBuilder();
    require.AppendLine(" <script type=\"text/javascript\">");
    require.AppendLine("    require(['Scripts/ngcommon'], function() {");
    require.AppendLine("        require( [ \"" + module + "\"] );");
    require.AppendLine("    });");
    require.AppendLine(" </script>");

    return new MvcHtmlString(require.ToString());
}

and then he could use it in _Layout.cshtml just like that:

   @Html.RequireJs()

and if you were listening carefully to the story, you probably noticed that there was also Scripts/ngcommon.js file to manually bootstrap angular.js and have commonly used angular directives and services

require(['angular', 'jquery'], function() {
    angular.module("common",[]).directive('blabla', function() {
        return {
            restrict: 'A',
            scope: { value: "@blabla" },
            link: function(scope, element, attrs) {     }
        }
    });

    //manually bootstrap it to html body
    $(function(){
        angular.bootstrap(document.getElementsByTagName('body'), ["common"]);
    });
});

And here comes the magic: from now on if it was a javascript file in \Scripts\views named as controllerName-viewName.js as home-index.js for Home\Index.cshtml it would be automagically picked up by require.js and loaded. Beautiful isn't it?

But then the magician thought: What If I need to load something else (like ng-grid) and that something should not be injected into common angular module because not all the pages will be using it. Of course he could always manually bootstrap another module into a page element in each code-behind javascript where he needed, but he's not wise enough to find answer to the question: Is it possible to inject some angular.js component (like ng-grid) directly into a controller, without having it as a part of the app module?

If I understand magician's idea right, then it is possible to go on by splitting your application into sub-modules being defined as a collection of components.

It will work if he sets up dependencies for main myApp module like:

var myApp = angular.module('myApp', ['Constants', 'Filters', 'Services', 'Directives', 'Controllers']);
myApp.Constants = angular.module('Constants', []);
myApp.Controllers = angular.module('Controllers', []);
myApp.Filters = angular.module('Filters', []);
myApp.Services = angular.module('Services', []);
myApp.Directives = angular.module('Directives', []);

Then each of sub-modules: Services etc. - can be extended with single component, like:

myApp.Controllers.controller('MyController', function () {});
myApp.Services.factory('myService', function () {});
myApp.Directives.directive('myDirective', function () {});
myApp.Filters.filter('myFilter', []);
myApp.Constants.constant('myConstant', []);

That way main application module is loaded with several sub-modules, but each structure is not important. It makes possible to include individual controllers, services, directives and filters on each page served from back-end - magician just needs to be sure that all needed dependencies are loaded.

DI is the magic key for having separate angular codebehind in MVC views. You don't even need the requirejs at all, because angular is a dependency injector and module loader by nature, angular.bootstrap is the magic place to start.

So let wizard became more powerfull with the spell - $inject. 

  var TmplController = function($scope, $compile, $http... // any module itself
    {
      this.parts = ['legs','arms','head'];
      $scope.dynamicPageTemplate = function($compile)
      {
        $compile('<div><p ng-repeat="each in parts">{{each}}</p></div>' )( $scope );
      }
    }

  TmplController.$inject = ['$scope','$comple', '$http']; //try legs or head

refer complete annotated source of angular-scenario.js from https://github.com/angular/bower-angular-scenario, and you will find how to inject code with define manner helpers.