> I automatically looked into the LayerManager

When I started working on that, I also thought of having the layer manager component manage the `layers`, `layers_visibility` and `layers_opacity` permalink parameters. But then I thought that a map with no layer manager, or with a different layer manager component, was a use-case that made sense. So I finally decided to create an independent service, in the map component.

The case of the catalog tree is a bit different. Would one want to write/read catalogNodes to/from the URL if the application didn't have a catalog tree directive? No, I don't think so.

What you want though, as an app developer, is to have the catalog tree component ignore the permalink. For this use-case I guess we can easily add a directive-level option for disabling/enabling permalink support.