While working on a project, I explored an idea to enhance user experience by implementing a feature that allows the back button to return to the place where a link was clicked, similar to traditional browsing.
To achieve this, one approach I considered was recording the page position during infinite scrolling using the window.location.hash value. For a detailed explanation and implementation in JavaScript or jQuery, you can refer to this answer with insights on using Asual's address plugin.
The core concept involves tracking the current page while loading content dynamically. An example snippet would be:
// Function to navigate to the next page
function scrollToNextPage(page){
// Your infinite scrolling logic here
$.address.parameter("currentPage", page);
}
$.address.externalChange(function(){
var page = $.address.parameter("currentPage"),
top = $.address.parameter("linkTop");
loadAjaxUpTo(page);
$('html, body').animate({ scrollTop: top }, 500);
});
// Capture the position of the clicked link
$("a").live('click', function(){
$.address.parameter("linkTop", $(this).scrollTop());
});
Although I didn't personally implement the last part (capturing link position), it should work smoothly to scroll to the desired location. However, I must note that such functionality may not always be necessary. Depending on the context, reloading AJAX and re-executing scripts for multiple pages can significantly impact performance. Additionally, achieving smooth scrolling animations can be challenging. Considerations like these led me to question the practicality of this feature for certain projects.
If you still decide to proceed with this approach, ensure you utilize a GET request to fetch pages and manage caching settings appropriately to optimize performance. In my experience, Ajax requests with GET were more cache-friendly compared to POST requests, which tended to bypass caching mechanisms.