How does GitHub do its fancy page-wipe effect when navigating repositories?

Question

1. Using a modern browser, go to a project in GitHub (e.g., https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap)
2. Click a subdirectory.

See the page-wipe effect before the subdirectory page loads? How does that work?

Update: More specifically, how does this happen perfectly and seamlessly before the next page is loaded? Can clicks be delayed? Is the next page loaded in the background?

Answer 1

It uses history.pushState (part of the HTML5 history API) along with some sliding effects. See this link for a plugin + demo.

Also, just found Github's blog post on the topic!

Answer 2

Seeing that github uses jquery, this is probably the answer you're looking for: http://api.jquery.com/category/effects/