Best practice for back button functionality

ionic-v1
1

Hello all. I am building a sub-nav that has a back button and was wondering if how I am approaching it follows best practices. There are a lot of resources on this which have been very helpful.

within MainCtrl.html

$scope.returnBackView = function() {
    console.log($ionicHistory.backView().url);
     $location.path($ionicHistory.backView().url);
};

back link in template:

<a class="ion-chevron-left sub-nav-back" ng-click="returnBackView()"></a>

Im only doing it this way because of the sub-nav hierarchy. Thanks a bunch.

EDIT: partially asking a second question here. Is it also best practice to get a single post id for instance within a view? Each view performs an API call through a service when you get into a deep subview IE: GET apiURL + 'categories/5/11.json' There is a very slight delay in populating API data in the subview. How have you guys handled this? Really appreciate the help.