what about $animate.removeClass(element, SUBMITTED_CLASS)? we should also have a test for this case

@lucassus care to explain a little bit what you meant? Sorry I didn't get it.

RFI: What's the rationale behind it? Why submitting a nested form needs marking all its parent as submitted?

Good question, I kept the logic of how the other states propagates upwards.
Do you have an use case that goes against this?

Yep, I have a multi-step form (aka wizard). I use .ng-submitted to style invalid inputs and have a plugin that detects if forms is dirty.

On pre-exit a state:

nestedForm.$setSubmitted();
if (!nestedForm.$valid) return;

On entering a sub-state / nested form:

this.target.mainForm.$setPristine();

Style:

.ng-submitted [ng-model].ng-invalid {
    border: 1px solid red;
}

The border keeps being draw because there's a form styled with .ng-submitted further up. And I actually use $setPristine() because it clears $submitted, but then it breaks form dirty-checking plugin.

Some strategies that could it (if they existed):

• form.$setSubmitted(state: boolean);
• form.$setSubmitted(updateParents: boolean);

I'm not sure yet about the invariants that could break with that. WDYT?

A workaround while form.$setSubmitted(state: boolean) doesn't exist:

const wasDirty = mainForm.$dirty;
mainForm.$setPristine();
if (wasDirty) {
    mainForm.$setDirty();
}