Question

I really wonder why facebook and google can change the url without reloading the page? they just change the block or content in their site.

I notice that when I am using facebook, when click on the “new feed” the url is “http://www.facebook.com/” and the page didn’t reload, then i click on “messages” the url changed to “http://www.facebook.com/messages/” and the page still not reload just change the “content” block of the site.

So how do I change url without reloading the page?

edit: i got the answer.
there are 2 cases here:

• browser support html5 (Firefox 3.6 + etc.): using html5 history. (example: http://www.facebook.com => http://www.facebook.com/messages )
• browser dosn’t support html5 (IE6, IE7, IE8 etc.): using hash tag (#) (example: http://www.facebook.com => http://www.facebook.com/#!/messages )

hope this help to who have doubt like me.

Answer 1

Have you looked into the history API for Javascript?

http://diveintohtml5.ep.io/history.html

EDIT: You could also use mod_rewrite with apache and then, but that would cause a refresh.

Or there is this JQuery Plugin

http://www.asual.com/jquery/address/