ASP.NET 4.0 routing + ajax + browser history

Question

The problem with ASP.NET 4.0 routing is that the Page.RouteData.Values does not contain the paramenters after # character from the link

System.Web.Routing.RouteTable.Routes.MapPageRoute("ProjectViewRoute1", 
"project/{title}/{idProject}#{idDesign}", "~/ProjectView.aspx");

As I said, the Page.RouteData.Values.ContainsKey("idDesign") will return false

The reason I want to make use of this feature is because I use JavaScript and Ajax to hide some content and load new one, wich in eyes of an user is like loading a different page, and he must be able to copy paste the URL and view that page later.

The question is: how to get the {idDesign} from the RoutedData ?

Answer 1

Browsers don't send data after the # in the URLs to the server; as a result, it is not possible for ASP.Net to capture that data and provide it to you.

I would recommend using a ? instead of your # to get the functionality you need, and include an AJAX call to capture data placed in the hash section of the url to send to the server, if necessary, for AJAX-created urls.

Using jQuery:

$(function () {
    if (location.hash) {
        hash = location.hash.substr(1);
        location.hash = null;
        location.search = hash;
    }
});