AngularJS Routing Not Working As Expected

Question

I'm new to AngularJS and very lost at this point. I am trying to learn from this code: http://plnkr.co/edit/dd8Nk9PDFotCQu4yrnDg?p=preview

script.js:

// create the module and name it scotchApp
var scotchApp = angular.module('scotchApp', ['ngRoute']);

// configure our routes
scotchApp.config(function($routeProvider) {
    $routeProvider

        // route for the home page
        .when('/', {
            templateUrl : 'pages/home.html',
            controller  : 'mainController'
        })

        // route for the about page
        .when('/about', {
            templateUrl : 'pages/about.html',
            controller  : 'aboutController'
        })

        // route for the contact page
        .when('/contact', {
            templateUrl : 'pages/contact.html',
            controller  : 'contactController'
        });
});

// create the controller and inject Angular's $scope
scotchApp.controller('mainController', function($scope) {
    // create a message to display in our view
    $scope.message = 'Everyone come and see how good I look!';
});

scotchApp.controller('aboutController', function($scope) {
    $scope.message = 'Look! I am an about page.';
});

scotchApp.controller('contactController', function($scope) {
    $scope.message = 'Contact us! JK. This is just a demo.';
});

My index.html file includes

<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.25/angular.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.25/angular-route.js"></script>

I have it set up on a local environment. I can load the main page but the routing only changes the URL, nothing else. Any ideas what could be causing this?

Answer 1

I found the solution to my problem. I had to add

app.use(express.static(__dirname ));

To my node server script. I don't understand why this was needed, though.