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Add to browser History without changing current URL

I have a 3 step signup process where each step is shown on the page using javascript without a page refresh. What I am trying to do now is add a back reference to what step the user was on so if they click the browser back button they will not lose all of their progress.
So for example, as the user navigates from Step 2 to Step 3 the URL stays at www.example.com. The user then clicks the browser back button. The URL should now be www.example.com?step-2.
I'm thinking that I will somehow need to use the History API to accomplish this but if I use window.history.pushState(null, null, 'www.example.com?step-2'), the current URL would be changed as well.
How would I accomplish adding to the history without changing the current URL?

If your objective is to not change the URL, but to still allow back and forth history state changes, your best bet would be to utilize the window's hashchange event listener. This would of course utilize hash references within the URL, but the base URL won't change:
function locationHashChanged() {
if (location.hash === '#step-2') {
// Do something here
}
}
window.onhashchange = locationHashChanged;
For further info on this, refer to official documentation:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/hashchange_event

Link with hash : how to always navigate

On the footer of the website I'm working on, I have links to different pages, and in one case, 2 links to the same page with a different hash in the url ,like this :
<a href="http://example.com/mypage#test>Test</a>
<a href="http://example.com/mypage#test2>Test2</a>
These hashes are not true anchors, they reflect some actions the user takes (namely showing/hiding some content).
If I come from another page, I navigate without any problem. However, if I am already on "mypage", then the hash changes, but nothing happens. The browser detects and anchor change and thus tries to navigate to the anchor.
That's fair enough, but I want my user to be actually redirected to "http://example.com/mypage#test2", as if he copy-pasted it himself in the address bar. How can I achieve that ?
I could use the hashchange event but it would make it complicated to manage the rest of the javascript, so I wonder if there is a simpler way to do it.

You have a very simple solution if you are using jQuery:
$(window).on('hashchange', function() {
//code
});
Check out this: On - window.location.hash - Change?
Also this MDN documentation.

Use the location.hash property of the window object to find out what the anchor is. To detect a change in the hash, with plain javascript, just use the onhashchange event.
window.onhashchange = new function() {
window.location.replace("http://example.com/mypage" + window.location.hash);
});

Make jQuery prevent going back on android

I have a simple pop-up contact form script written:
$(document).ready(function(){
var popupButton = $("#contact-popup-button");
var popupBox = $("#pop-up-contact");
var popupBg = $("#pop-up-close-background");
popupButton.on("click", function(){
popupBox.addClass("slide-out");
popupBg.fadeIn(200);
});
popupBg.on("click", function(){
popupBox.removeClass("slide-out");
popupBg.fadeOut(100);
});
Basically when a button is clicked, a div appears and the space behind it gets foggy. If you press the space around the appeared div, it will dissapear.
Now for mobile devices, I'd like there also to be an option to make the div dissapear on clicking the back button. Unfortunately, I can not get it to work in practice at all.
I have tried these answers:
handling back button in android from jquery
Take control of hardware back button jquery mobile
But both seem to fail in this task, and the others use plugins, which I'd like to avoid.
Tested on LG G2 Mini and Sony Xperia Z1

One approach would be to use the HTML5 History API.
When opening the popup you can push a state to the history stack before opening the popup:
history.pushState({popupOpen: false}, "My title", "index.html");
This method automatically updates the page title (which is currently ignored in most browser implementations) and the last part of the url, that will be displayed in the browser bar. In most cases, you can enter your filename here. The first argument is an object containing the data you can access later when popping a state.
As soon as you have pushed a state to the history stack, when pressing the back key, the browser does not return to the last page as usual, but pops the last state on the stack. This applies for all browsers though, if you want the functionality for mobile browsers only, you have to do a browser check before calling history.pushState.
To correctly handle the back event, you need to subscribe to the popstate-Event. This can be done with the following code:
window.addEventListener("popstate", function(event) {
var data = event.state;
if(data.popupOpen === false) {
popupBg.trigger('click');
}
});
You register an event listener that fires as soon as the user navigates back. In the event.state variable the data you passed in when pushing the state can be accessed again.
Good luck!

Make browser delete specific history states

I have an ajax controlled website, where I have two types of pages, displayed to the user. For the simplicity let's call them MAINPAGEs and SUBPAGEs. MAINPAGEs contain information, and SUBPAGEs are all forms, where the user can add or modify existing information of a MAINPAGE for example.
If my site is visited by a user with HTML5 compatible browser, I use HistoryJS to update the url when he/she navigates on my website. Let's pressume the following example:
The user entered my website and navigated to the following pages in the following order, and his history looks something like this:
MAINPAGE(1) --> MAINPAGE(2) --> SUBPAGE(1) --> SUBPAGE(2)
When the user completes the form on SUBPAGE(2), I want to redirect him immediatly to the last MAINPAGE he visited. So for example when the user completes the form, I would like that the users history to be this:
MAINPAGE(1) --> MAINPAGE(2)
Visually, I am able to achieve this, everything works correctly, but afterwards, in a HTML5 browser, if I press the native back key on the browser, the page tries to revert to SUBPAGE(1), the correct back state from the initial history.
Is it achievable, to delete some of the history states, and if yes, how can I do that?
Here's the code I use so far:
ConverserNavigation.prototype.getPreviousMainAction = function() {
// NOTE: the code that deals with non HTML5 compatible browsers,
// was removed because everything works fine there
var startFrom, found=false;
if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) startFrom=History.getState().data.id;
// if browser is HTML5 compatible, get the current state from History object,
// which is a HistoryJS object
while ((!found) && (startFrom>0)) // find the last MAINPAGE visited by user
{
startFrom--;
if (this.historyData[startFrom].pageData.page != 'quickactions') found=true;
}
if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) History.replaceState({id:startFrom}, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.title, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.url);
// replace the current history state, with the one to where we want to revert
this.currentNavigationId=startFrom;
this.back(); // render the ui to navigate back to the previous page, works as intended
for (var i=this.currentNavigationId;i<this.historyData.length;i++) delete this.historyData[i]; // delete the unused history data
}

I've managed to solve this issue by modifying my code the following way:
Replaced this line:
if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) History.replaceState({id:startFrom}, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.title, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.url);
with this:
if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) {
History.go(goBack); //goBack is the number of states I have to backtrack
this.HistoryJS.manualStateChange=false; // telling the browser to not fire my own UI updating functions
History.back(); // navigating one more state back in the History object
History.pushState({id:startFrom}, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.title, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.url); // recreating the original state in the History.
this.HistoryJS.manualStateChange=true; // restarting the UI update functions on pop or push events
}

URL change ajax call in Facebook

In facebook, whenever you navigate to a different URL (in some situations), the URL changes but there is no feeling sensed as going to a different page.
For example: when we view pictures in facebook, and when we move to the next image the URL changes in the address bar
FROM >facebook.com/foo?bar=foobar&xxxx=
TO > >>facebook.com/foo?bar=boobar&xxxx=
and this is not hashed change also
like
FROM >facebook.com/xxxxx#xxx=xxxx
TO > >>facebook.com/xxxxx#xxx=yyyy
How is this possible seamlessly. I mean how is that only a container is modified on URL change. URL change is supposed to navigate to a different page which can contain cached information from previous page and THIS navigation by URL change can be seen obviously by browser's screen going blank for a moment.
If using an iFrame, how to implement this ?

I use somehting similar to this
try {
var stateObj = { foo: "bar" };
history.pushState(stateObj, "page", href);
loadPage(href);
}
catch(e) {
window.location.hash = "#!/"+href;
}
If it supports the HTML5 pushState them change URL, but if it doesn't then the fall back is the window hash.

wow. I just asked it few minutes ago ... use search next time ;)
Dynamic favicon when I'm proccessing ajax data
Modify the URL without reloading the page

There's a jQuery plugin called "address" that will watch for changes and call the function you give. I think it's just checking the URL every 100ms or so.

They issue an AJAX request for the data necessary to fulfil the "navigation", then tell the browser to "go to #xxx=yyy". Since such an anchor doesn't exist, the browser doesn't actually scroll down. However, it does record a new history entry, and also updates the URL so that if someone copy-pastes that URL, they will view the same object that the user is seeing, rather than just the original page.