JavaScript - Basic URL rewrite + creating record in history

Question

Here's the situation. I have a site where clicking hyperlinks within a certain div makes a jQuery function get the content of a div from a separate page. Because of this, the URL don't change. I need it to change as well as writing an entry in history.

My pages are setup like this (not sure this is the smartest way of going though)

• access.php (main logon)
• new-user.php
• forgot-pass.php
• index.php
• controlpanel.php

etcetc. Now, all of these pages are reachable on their own and are mainly identical and all contain a div called "container". When clicking links, the content from this div gets erased and the content from the coresponding div (container) gets loaded from the file of the URL (href). I'm terrible at explaining..

So basically, what I need is some javascript that picks up the href link address and just pastes it in the url bar at the same time as it creates an entry in history so the back and forth buttons work.

I plan on extending this in a while as well, translating query strings as well. But there are a few constant static pages I need to take care of first. Any help would be very appreciated! :)

Answer 1

Have you looked at the jquery address plugin? Look at the examples. Is this similar to what you want?

Answer 2

You are not allowed to change the entire URL by JavaScript but you can use URL hashes. I recommend you the browser history plug-in. You can simply register a handler to react on URL changes and load your corresponding content via ajax.

Answer 3

Hello,

It's not possible with "normal urls" (we must wait for a new generation of browsers...)

But there is a "trick": playing with anchors. A link like "same_page.php#anchor" does not reload the page, but act on both the history and the adress bar.

So, if instead of having url like "page.php?param=lorem", you could have "page.php#param=lorem", you have your solution :)