I'm trying to implement a decent navigation in a AJAX application. What I am doing right now is the following: Every time a user clicks an AJAX link, the corresponding call is performed and the hash is changed. Whenever a new page is loaded, I check whether the hash is present and make the corresponding AJAX call to update the page. This ensures that bookmarks will work as expected. Every 500ms I check if the hash is changed and perform the corresponding AJAX call. This takes care of users pressing the back/forward buttons, albeit with a sligth delay. The third point is a bit annoying: I'd rather not have a timeout every 500ms just to check the hash, as most of the time it will stay the same. Is there a better way to manage this? I cannot think of any alternatives, but maybe I am missing something. Please, do not point me towards ready-made solutions, unless you know they are based on a different mechanism.

Reputation: 20503

Clever way to manage browser history

I'm trying to implement a decent navigation in a AJAX application. What I am doing right now is the following:

Every time a user clicks an AJAX link, the corresponding call is performed and the hash is changed.
Whenever a new page is loaded, I check whether the hash is present and make the corresponding AJAX call to update the page. This ensures that bookmarks will work as expected.
Every 500ms I check if the hash is changed and perform the corresponding AJAX call. This takes care of users pressing the back/forward buttons, albeit with a sligth delay.

The third point is a bit annoying: I'd rather not have a timeout every 500ms just to check the hash, as most of the time it will stay the same.

Is there a better way to manage this? I cannot think of any alternatives, but maybe I am missing something.

Please, do not point me towards ready-made solutions, unless you know they are based on a different mechanism.

Upvotes: 5

Answers (3)

Chris Cinelli

Reputation: 4829

Use this plugin: http://www.asual.com/jquery/address/

The jQuery Address plugin provides powerful deep linking capabilities and allows the creation of unique virtual addresses that can point to a website section or an application state. It enables a number of important capabilities including:

Bookmarking in a browser or social website
Sending links via email or instant messenger
Finding specific content using the major search engines
Utilizing browser history and reload buttons

Upvotes: 0

DoXicK

Reputation: 4812

maybe this is an interesting read, it is a ready made solution for the exact thing you are doing. and no, until the hashchange is properly supported in every browser (read: ie), you will have to check manually

Upvotes: 0

Nathan

Reputation: 11159

There is the "hashchange" event, which is to be implemented in HTML5. I'm not sure how good support is now... IE8 supports it, and I think Mozilla have their own implementation in a recent release. Other than that, there is nothing I'm afraid. Checking exery x ms is the way everyone does it.

Upvotes: 5

Clever way to manage browser history

Answers (3)

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