How should implement Hashbang (AJAX) in content page tabs? - php

As some of you may know, Google is now crawling AJAX. The implementation is by far something elegant, but at least it still applies to Yahoo and Bing AFAIK.
Context: My site is driven by Wordpress & HTML5. An Custom Post Type has tree types of content, and the contents of these are driven by AJAX. The solution I came for not using hashbangs (#!) until fully understand how to implement them is rather "risqué". Every link as HREF linking to *site.com/article-one/?tab=first_tab*, that shows only the contents of the selected tab (<div>Content...</div>). Like this:
This First Tab
As you may note, data-tab is the value that JavaScript sends with AJAX Get, that gets the related content and renders inside a container. At the other side, the server gets the variable and does a <?php get_template_part('tab-first-tab'); ?> to deliver the content.
About the risqué, well, I can see that Google and other search engines will fetch *http://site.com/article-one/?tab=first_tab* instead of http://site.com/article-one/, making users come to that URL instead of showing the home page with the tab content selected automatically.
The problem now is the implementation to avoid that.
Hashbang: From what I learned, I should do this.
HREF should become site.com/article-one/#!first-tab
JS should extract the "first-tab" of the href and pass it out to $_GET (just for the sake of not using "data-tab").
JS should change the URL to site.com/article-one/#!first-tab
JS should detect if the URL has #!first-tab, and show the selected tab instead of the default one.
Now, for the server-side implementation, here is where I'm kind lost in the woods.
How Wordpress will handle site.com/article-one/?_escaped_fragment_=first-tab?
Do I have to change something in .htaccess?
What should have the HTML snapshot? My guess is all the site, but with the requested tab showing, instead of showing only the content.
I think that I can separate what Wordpress will handle when it detects the _escaped_fragment_. If is requested, like by Google, it will show all the content plus the selected content, and if not, it's because AJAX is requesting it and will show only the content. That should be right?

I'm gonna talk third person.
Since this has no responses, I have a good one why you should not do this. Yes, the same reason why Twitter banged them:
http://danwebb.net/2011/5/28/it-is-about-the-hashbangs
Instead of doing hashbangs, you should make normal URIs. For example, an article with summary tab on should be "site.com/article/summary", and if it is the default one that pops out (or is it already requested) it also should change to that URI using pushState().
If the user selects the tab "exercises", the URL should change to "site.com/article/exercises" using pushState() while the site loads the content throught AJAX, and while you still maintain the original href to "site.com/article/exercises". Without JavaScript the user should still see the content - not only the content, the whole page with the tab selected.
For that to work, some editing to the .htaccess to handle the /[tab] in the URL should be done.

Related

Ajax load contents and append related urls

I am trying to use Ajax in a Project.
The Idea is when i click a Tab,
The Relevant Data should load according to that Tab.
But it also should append the Url on address bar of current form that i am in.
Let Suppose i clicked the ERP Tab, so then ERP Divs should load inside the page but also the relative url should also show
e-g
www.mydomain.com\erp
i know about .load function, but with it it dont update the url on address bar.
plus data will be coming from different files.
Also Left Side Menus will be coming from Database on Role Base.
i am using codeigniter in this project
i want to have Url functionality as it will be easy for user to access that page directly with the complete url plus it also gives bookmark advantage too..
Here is the screenshot for more convenience.
AFAIK you can't change the actual URL without a page reload.
You'll have to use 'jquery-address' library. Check out https://github.com/asual/jquery-address
I would do two different things here:
To change the URL dynamically without page load, use the new history.pushState() method. If you are supporting older browsers, history.js is essentially the same API that falls back to a hashtag method. Note that these URLs are not accessible from the outside. Thus:
When a user travels to one of those URLs, default the open tab to whichever one you are trying to. You will have to capture the intended route and work some javascript magic on it.

What is the use of # in url

I realized that many of web app use # in their app's URL.
For example, Google Analytics.
This address is in the URL bar when I am viewing the visitor's language page:
https://www.google.com/analytics/web/?hl=en#report/visitors-language/a33185827w60383872p61754588/
This address is in the address bar when I am viewing the visitors' geolocation page:
https://www.google.com/analytics/web/?hl=en#report/visitors-geo/a33185827w60383872p61754588/
I think that this is the Google Analytics web app passing #report/visitors-language and #report/vistiors-geo.
I know that Google analytics is using an <iframe>. It seems that only the main content box is changing when displaying content.
Is # used because of the <iframe> functionality?
There are several answers but none cover the backend part.
Here is a URL, one from your own example:
www.google.com/analytics/web/?hl=en#report/visitors-language/a33185827w60383872p61754588/
You can think about the post-hash (including the hash #) part as a client-side request.
The web server will never know what was entered after the hash sign. It is the browser pointing to a specific ID on the page.
For basic web pages, if you have this HTML: <a name="main">welcome</a>
on a web page at www.example.com/welcome, going to www.example.com/welcome#main will scroll your browser viewport to the welcome text in the <a> HTML tag.
The web server will not know whether #main was in the URL or not.
Values in the URL after a question mark are called URL parameters, e.g. www.example.com/?foo=bar. The web server can deliver different content based on those values.
However, there is a technology developed by Google called AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) that makes use of the # part in the URL to deliver different content without a page load. It's not using an <iframe>.
Using JavaScript, you can trigger a change in the URL's post-hash part and make a request to the server to get a specific part of the page, for example for the URL www.example.com/welcome#main2 Even if an element named #main2 does not exist, you can show one using JavaScript.
A hashbang is #!. It is used to make search engine indexing easier by indicating that this part is a dynamic web page.
This is the "hash" in the url.
Many browsers support hash change event in javascript.
as per my knowledge the hash change is the revolution in the ajax callbacks.
as such when the user interacts with the any link with a hash then on the hash change the event is fired and you can apply any thing with the javascript.
one more thing is that hash change is supported by the browser history.
see below URL
SEO and the use of !# in a url
or Read it
'#! is called a "hashbang" and they are the root of all that is evil in web development.'
Basically, weak web developers decided to use #anchor names as a kludgy hack to get "web 2.0" things to work on their page, then complained to google that their page rank suffered. Google made a work around to their kludge by enabling the hashbang.
Weak web developers took this work around as gospel. Don't use it. It is a crutch.
Web development that depends on hashbangs is web-development done wrong.
This article is far more well worded than I could ever be, and deals with the Gawker media fiasco from their migration to a (failed) hashbang centric website. It tells you WHAT is happening and why it's bad.
http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/BreakingTheWebWithHashBangs
Correct me if I'm wrong, the hashtag in that URL would be used as an anchor to scroll the page to an element with an id. For example, I send you to the url http://example.com/sample#example, and the page would scroll (just display) at the element (I'm using a div as an arbitrary example, it could be anything).
Ajax and hash mark in the url mostly used for quick action.
If you have a part in your site that can be visible only by fire event (mostly click) - it would be hard to share it. With hash mark in the url you can (by javascript) make the browser think that you did the required action and it will display the relevant part.
Normally the '#' is using in url will find the particular id which is next to '#' in that particular page. By using this we can view the particular content at middle of the page also.

dynamically load part of a website - change url

my question is about this website - http://www.bits-apogee.org/2011/
whenever you click on the link in the side navigation bar, the middle part of the website is dynamically loaded. Also, the url also changes, everything else remains unchanged. how is this done?
is this some query plugin?
I totally agree with #JMCCreative. It looks like it's an actual refresh. You should look at the following post on StackOverflow.
Modify the URL without reloading the page
The site is using Hashes (#) in the URL to denote the new content being loaded.
This is useful for people bookmarking dynamically loaded content (normally hashes load to specific areas on a page, named anchors or ID's for new browsers), because they don't trigger the page to refresh...
http://www.highrankings.com/urls-with-hashtags-307 there are drawback (SEO) concerns to this... however you will notice more and more sites doing it so i would assume the SEO robots will get better.
There are 2 possibilities:
You can use the HTML5 capabilities to change the url (history pushState), however this feature isn't available in all browsers yet. For more information, look at this SO post: Is there a way to change the browser's address bar without refreshing the page? .
You can use a hashtag (#) part as fall back for browsers who don't have above feature yet.
If you use jQuery, you can use the handy plug-in jQuery Address. This will take care of both above cases.
They're not using a plugin. They're doing an ajax request to a URL like this:
http://www.bits-apogee.org/2011/getcontent/?even=Rachel+Armstrong
and dumping the overview in the container.
The circle of this type of process is usually like this:
listen for link clicks
on click, prevent default on event.
user window.history.pushState to update url
some other code - hears new history
generates a url to get the content.
ajax load the url
dump the data into a container
2 Libraries I have used, both are easier than the above, as they rely on loading a regular html page via AJAX instead the example site you point to, which used a JSON format to get the data.
Pjax - update peices of the page, by pulling that HTML node from a different URL.
Ajaxify - easiest solution, you could do that effect on an HTML site in 10 minutes.

How do you do dynamic refresh of a single div tab using php/ajax and have the content actually change the local html on the page

How do you do dynamic refresh of a single div tab using php/ajax and have the content actually change the local html on the page (so that it is changed when you go to ‘view source’ in a browser) instead of just putting the change in a JavaScript object? I am trying to design a webpage that loads search results without refreshing the entire page. I use a simple hash followed by a GET/query string request to determine what content to load. This gets passed to a JavaScript XMLHttpRequest, then to some php which picks up the GET and passes it to a SOAP service and finally echo’s the SOAP results back to the XMLHttpRequest to get displayed in a document.getElementById div change. This works fine for usual display in conventional browsers. However I am concerned that search bots and screen readers are not going to recognize the majority of the content that shows in browsers because it is all contained within a client side JavaScript object.
So, I guess my first question is: is this a valid concern? If it is, is there a work around?
Thanks!
AJAX content is very hard to get indexed. Google has webmaster guidelines for AJAX. This should get you started in the right direction on getting your content indexed.
I'm inexperienced with search engine behavior but as far as i know the best option is to load the full content of your div on a php page, when the page load you can include that page inside the div, and then start using js/jquery to refresh that every so many seconds.
this way when a search bot gets on the site it will see the current content, and users will see it update.
updating the div box can be done quite easy using ajax function and jquery.

JavaScript - Basic URL rewrite + creating record in history

Here's the situation.
I have a site where clicking hyperlinks within a certain div makes a jQuery function get the content of a div from a separate page. Because of this, the URL don't change. I need it to change as well as writing an entry in history.
My pages are setup like this (not sure this is the smartest way of going though)
access.php (main logon)
new-user.php
forgot-pass.php
index.php
controlpanel.php
etcetc. Now, all of these pages are reachable on their own and are mainly identical and all contain a div called "container". When clicking links, the content from this div gets erased and the content from the coresponding div (container) gets loaded from the file of the URL (href). I'm terrible at explaining..
So basically, what I need is some javascript that picks up the href link address and just pastes it in the url bar at the same time as it creates an entry in history so the back and forth buttons work.
I plan on extending this in a while as well, translating query strings as well. But there are a few constant static pages I need to take care of first. Any help would be very appreciated! :)
You are not allowed to change the entire URL by JavaScript but you can use URL hashes. I recommend you the browser history plug-in. You can simply register a handler to react on URL changes and load your corresponding content via ajax.
Have you looked at the jquery address plugin? Look at the examples. Is this similar to what you want?
It's not possible with "normal urls" (we must wait for a new generation of browsers...)
But there is a "trick": playing with anchors.
A link like "same_page.php#anchor" does not reload the page, but act on both the history and the adress bar.
So, if instead of having url like "page.php?param=lorem", you could have "page.php#param=lorem", you have your solution :)

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