Ionic framework with AngularJs : Can a modal have the same controller as the view that launches the modal?

I am trying to build out a multistep form for a complex object. I use the modal to section out parts of the form. The Ionic examples I could find, appear to assign a different controller to the modal. I would like to keep the view plus all the modals it launches, all of them associated with one controller. Is that possible? I tried assigning to the modal view ng-controller="viewCtrl" where viewCtrl is also the controller of the starting view that launches the modal, but it appears to hang chrome with a high CPU which subsequently necessitates killing the chrome tab.(some sort of cyclic effect by calling the same controller??) Your advice/insight would be welcome.

I assume that your modal is a directive. I also assume that you have it placed inside the view (controller scope).

If the above are correct than the directive inherits the $scope properties and methods from the parent controller (a general thing in angular), unless your directive has an isolated scope (if you have the scope property in the directive set to anything but false).

If your directive has an isolated scope you can still pass data from the parent using attributes on the directive. If you want to pass something from the directive to the parent you can use $emit. You can also access the parent from the directive using $parent but I would suggest against it.