Cross-browser jquery ajax history with window.history.pushState and fallback

I want to implement a navigation history using jQuery and AJAX in a cross-browser manner. My approach is to use window.history.pushState and fall back to a hash url /#!/url in browsers that do not support window.history.pushState.

For example:

<a href="/home">home</a>
<a href="/about">about</a>
<a href="/contact">contact</a>

On browsers that support window.history.pushState, clicking on one of these links should change address without page refresh to http://domain.com/home, http://domain.com/about etc. When the browser does not support window.history.pushState, it should use a fragment identifier, i.e: http://domain.com/#!/home, http://domain.com/#!/about.

Update: Based on the feedback here I have implemented Ajax SEO (git) that uses jQuery Address for HTML5 History API with old browser fallback to /#!/url.

jquery ajax browser-history

Edit Report

Something i've been using with fallback hash URL's:

History = History || {};
History.pathname = null;
History.previousHash = null;
History.hashCheckInterval = -1;
History.stack = [];
History.initialize = function () {
    if (History.supportsHistoryPushState()) {
        History.pathname = document.location.pathname;
        $(window).bind("popstate", History.onHistoryChanged);
    } else {
        History.hashCheckInterval = setInterval(History.onCheckHash, 200);
    }
};
History.supportsHistoryPushState = function () {
    return ("pushState" in window.history) && window.history.pushState !== null;
};
History.onCheckHash = function () {
    if (document.location.hash !== History.previousHash) {
        History.navigateToPath(document.location.hash.slice(1));
        History.previousHash = document.location.hash;
    }
};
History.pushState = function (url) {
    if (History.supportsHistoryPushState()) {
        window.history.pushState("", "", url);
    } else {
        History.previousHash = url;
        document.location.hash = url;
    }
    History.stack.push(url);
};
History.onHistoryChanged = function (event) {
    if (History.supportsHistoryPushState()) {
        if(History.pathname != document.location.pathname){
            History.pathname = null;
            History.navigateToPath(document.location.pathname);
        }
    }
};
History.navigateToPath = function(pathname) {
    History.pushState(pathname);

    // DO SOME HANDLING OF YOUR PATH HERE

};

You could bind your click events to this with:

$(function(){
    $("a").click(function(){
        var href = $(this).attr('href');
        History.navigateToPath( href )
        return false;
    });
});

~~If you need some more explanation on this example i'll be glad to hear it.~~

EDIT

Please see my other answer.

answered 2011-05-06T12:33:16.023

Cross-browser jquery ajax history with window.history.pushState and fallback

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