Handling hashed links for web applications using AJAX
Web page visitors may want to bookmark certain state or pass it along to others. In pre-AJAX days it was a matter of simply passing a page URL. With AJAX, however, there's no standard way of conveying page state when some content have been pulled thru an AJAX call.
One solution is to pass a "hash" parameter as if it was a request to move to an anchor within the page. That hash parameter can then be fetched processed by Javascript:
function process_hashed_url(url) {
var res = url.match(/#(.+)$/); /* Look for a hash - it's a part between # and the end of URL */
if (!res)
return; /* Skip if not a "hashed" link */
var hash = res[1];
new Ajax.Updater('target','parts/'+hash+'.html',{method: 'get'}); /* Process the hash parameter - in this case, fetch some additional content thru an AJAX call*/
}
process_hashed_url(document.location.href); /* See if page was requested with a hash parameter */
Click here to see an example and here to see another content fetched. Download example code here.
