AngularJS routing multiple ui-views for the same URL?

Question

I need multiple ui-views for one URL (my homepage). The limitation for ui-routing is that I can't have multiple <div ui-view></div> but they have to be in their nested states.

<div class="left-div">
  <div ui-view></div>
  <button ui-sref="1"></button>
  <button ui-sref="2"></button>
  <button ui-sref="3"></button>
</div>

<div class="right-div">
  <button ui-sref="3"></button>
  <div ui-view></div>
</div>

How do I make it so that ui-sref=1 and ui-sref=2 will update the ui-view inside:

<div class="left-div"></div>

and ui-sref=3 will update the ui-view inside <div class="right-div"></div>

The issue I encountered when I used ui-router was that upon changes from ui-sref from 1 -> 3 or 2 -> 3 the ui-view of left-div will disappear because the URL changes.

How do I approach this?

EDIT- My current state views

chatApp.config(function($stateProvider, $urlRouterProvider) {

    $urlRouterProvider.otherwise('/home')

    $stateProvider

            .state('friend', {
                url: '/friend',
                templateUrl: 'friend.html'
            })

            .state('group', {
                url: '/group',
                templateUrl: 'group.html'
            })

            .state('search', {
                url: '/search',
                templateUrl: 'search.html'
            })

            .state('home', {
                url: '/search',
                templateUrl: 'search.html'
            })

            .state('public', {
                url: '/public',
                views: {
                    'publicView': { templateUrl: 'private-chat.html' }
                }
            });

  <div class="col-md-3 left-col-friends" ng-controller="friendListCtrl">

    <div class="friends-list-navigation">
      <div class="option-wrapper">

        <div class="col-xs-3 home-option" ui-sref="public"><i class="fa fa-home fa-2x"></i></div>
        <div class="col-xs-3 friend-option" ui-sref="friend"><i class="fa fa-user fa-2x"></i></div>
        <div class="col-xs-3 group-option" ui-sref="group"><i class="fa fa-users fa-2x"></i></div>
        <div class="col-xs-3 search-option" ui-sref="search"><i class="fa fa-search fa-2x"></i></div>


      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="friends-list-display">
        <div ui-view></div>
    </div>

  </div>

  <div class="col-md-9 middle-col-chat" ng-controller="publicCtrl">
    <div class="bubble-frame-public">
      <div ui-view="publicView"></div>
    </div>


    <div class="input-fields-wrapper" emoji-form emoji-message="emojiMessage">
      <div class="col-md-8">
        <textarea class="col-md-4" id="messageInput" ng-model="emojiMessage.messagetext"></textarea>
      </div>



      <div class="col-md-3">
        <button class="btn btn-default btn-send-public-msg" ng-click="emojiMessage.replyToUser()"><i class="fa fa-paper-plane"></i></button>
        <button class="btn btn-default" id="emojibtn">
          <i class="fa fa-smile-o"></i>
        </button>
        <button class="btn btn-default"><i class="fa fa-video-camera"></i></button>
      </div>


    </div>

  </div>

Answer 1

I'm taking a guess that the publicView is the view you're wanting to stay unchanged while the other views are changing. Here's one way to tackle it.

$stateProvider
    .state('home', {
        url: '/home',
        views: {
            '@': {
                templateUrl: 'search.html'
            },
            'publicView@': {
                templateUrl: 'private-chat.html'
            }
        }
    })
    .state('home.friend', {
        views: {
            '@': {
                templateUrl: 'friend.html'
            }
        }
    })
    .state('home.group', {
        views: {
            '@': {
                templateUrl: 'group.html'
            }
        }
    });

The default URL is /home. When it's accessed, publicView is populated with private-chat.html and the unnamed ui-view is populated with search.html.

For the friend and group states, they leave the publicView alone and they don't use new URLs, which is what I think you're going for. This is accomplished by making them children states of home and by specificying absolutely which views should be altered.