When refresh page make sure stay in same div area

Question

When I click on my next button and it goes to step 2 and if I reload the page I would like to make sure it stays on the same div that I am on.

The 2 divs I use are join_form_1 and join_form_2

At the moment it when I reload page it goes back to first div

How can I make it stay on the div I am on?

Codepen Example Here

$(document).ready(function(){

    $("#join_form_2").hide();
    $("#step_1_link").addClass("active");

    $("#next").click(function(){
        $("#step_1_link").removeClass("active");
        $("#step_2_link").addClass("active");
        $("#join_form_1").hide();
        $("#join_form_2").show();
    });

}); 

HTML

<div class="container">
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-lg-12 col-md-12 col-sm-12 col-xs-12">
            <div class="heading-message">
                <div class="text-center">
                    <i class="fa fa-user" aria-hidden="true"></i>
                </div>
                <div class="text-center">
                    <h1>Request A Admin Member Login</h1>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div class="row">

        <div class="col-lg-9 col-md-9 col-sm-12 col-xs-12">


            <ol class="steps list-inline">
                <li id="step_1_link">
                    <a href="">Step 1: Set up a personal account</a>
                </li>
                <li id="step_2_link">
                    <a href="">Step 2: Choose profile picture</a>
                </li>
            </ol>

            <div id="join_form_1">

            <div class="form-group">
            <label>Username</label>
            <input type="text" name="username" value="" class="form-control" placeholder="" />
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
            <label>Email</label>
            <input type="text" name="email" value="" class="form-control" placeholder="" />
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
            <label>Password</label>
            <input type="password" name="password" value="" class="form-control" placeholder="" />
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
            <label>Confirm Password</label>
            <input type="password" name="confirm_password" class="form-control" placeholder="" />
            </div>

            <div class="form-group">
                <button type="button" class="btn btn-default" id="next">Next</button>
            </div>  

            </div><!-- Setup_1 -->

            <div id="join_form_2">

            <div class="form-group">
            <label>Upload A Image</label>
            <input type="file" name="userfile" size="50" />
            </div>

            </div><!-- Setup_1 -->

        </div>

        <div class="col-lg-3 col-md-3 col-sm-12 col-xs-12">
            <div class="info-box">
                <h2>You'll Love This Forum</h2>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

Answer 1

The easiest and most reliable way to do this is to use Fragment_identifier along with :target pseudo selector.

This will work even if cookies are disabled. And since you're using bootstrap, it's easy to style <a> tags like buttons.

For example:

if (!window.location.hash) {
  window.location.hash = 'step1';

.steps:not(:target) {
  display: none;
}

  <a href="#step1">step1</a>
  <a href="#step2">step2</a>
  <div id="step1" class="steps">Step1</div>
  <div id="step2" class="steps">Step2</div>

Answer 2

You can use javascript cookie API here

So when user clicks 'Next'

 Cookies.set('active', 'join_form_2');

Than if user clicked in the previous session, show form 2.

if (Cookies.get('active') == 'join_form_2') {
   $("#join_form_1").hide();
   $("#step_1_link").removeClass("active");
} else {
   $("#join_form_2").hide();
   $("#step_1_link").addClass("active");
}

Here is working codepen.