HTML5 History API

When you click an internal link, what happens?

The current page you are looking at tears down. The screen goes completely white. Your new page loads. You take this process for granted, it's how the internet has always worked. We've been using AJAX for some time now to request and load select portions of the page. The problem is that we haven't had proper tools for reflecting that change in the site's URL. It's been tried with URL hashes, but this approach is just a hack. Enter the HTML5 History API. It gives us a way to update the site's URL without refreshing the page. It's an important feature in the arms race between web and native applications. When ditching the page refresh, navigating feels faster. We use less bandwidth by loading page fragments. We can introduce content transitions instead of hard page refreshes. It makes the site feel like a native application while retaining the best feature of the internet, canonical URLs.

This meetup will discuss how to start using the History API, how to integrate it with AJAX and how to deal with content transitions. Get ready for a whole new dimension of web design! No previous experience with pushState or AJAX is necessary. Trust me, it's not that scary. Hope to see you there!