Good tutorial for using HTML5 History API (Pushstate?) [closed]

Question

For a great tutorial the Mozilla Developer Network page on this functionality is all you'll need: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/Manipulating_the_browser_history

Unfortunately, the HTML5 History API is implemented differently in all the HTML5 browsers (making it inconsistent and buggy) and has no fallback for HTML4 browsers. Fortunately, History.js provides cross-compatibility for the HTML5 browsers (ensuring all the HTML5 browsers work as expected) and optionally provides a hash-fallback for HTML4 browsers (including maintained support for data, titles, pushState and replaceState functionality).

You can read more about History.js here: https://github.com/browserstate/history.js

For an article about Hashbangs VS Hashes VS HTML5 History API, see here: https://github.com/browserstate/history.js/wiki/Intelligent-State-Handling

I benefited a lot from 'Dive into HTML 5'. The explanation and demo are easier and to the point. History chapter - http://diveintohtml5.info/history.html and history demo - http://diveintohtml5.info/examples/history/fer.html

Keep in mind while using HTML5 pushstate if a user copies or bookmarks a deep link and visits it again, then that will be a direct server hit which will 404 so you need to be ready for it and even a pushstate js library won't help you. The easiest solution is to add a rewrite rule to your Nginx or Apache server like so:

Apache (in your vhost if you're using one):

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteRule ^index\.html$ - [L]
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule . /index.html [L]
 </IfModule>

Nginx

rewrite ^(.+)$ /index.html last;

The HTML5 history spec is quirky.

history.pushState() doesn't dispatch a popstate event or load a new page by itself. It was only meant to push state into history. This is an "undo" feature for single page applications. You have to manually dispatch a popstate event or use history.go() to navigate to the new state. The idea is that a router can listen to popstate events and do the navigation for you.

Some things to note:

• history.pushState() and history.replaceState() don't dispatch popstate events.
• history.back(), history.forward(), and the browser's back and forward buttons do dispatch popstate events.
• history.go() and history.go(0) do a full page reload and don't dispatch popstate events.
• history.go(-1) (back 1 page) and history.go(1) (forward 1 page) do dispatch popstate events.

You can use the history API like this to push a new state AND dispatch a popstate event.

history.pushState({message:'New State!'}, 'New Title', '/link'); window.dispatchEvent(new PopStateEvent('popstate', { bubbles: false, cancelable: false, state: history.state }));

Then listen for popstate events with a router.

You could try Davis.js, it gives you routing in your JavaScript using pushState when available and without JavaScript it allows your server side code to handle the requests.