jquery-pjax
v2.0.1
Published
jQuery plugin for ajax + pushState navigation
Downloads
94,250
Readme
pjax = pushState + ajax
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Introduction
pjax is a jQuery plugin that uses ajax and pushState to deliver a fast browsing experience with real permalinks, page titles, and a working back button.
pjax works by grabbing html from your server via ajax and replacing the content of a container on your page with the ajax'd html. It then updates the browser's current URL using pushState without reloading your page's layout or any resources (JS, CSS), giving the appearance of a fast, full page load. But really it's just ajax and pushState.
For browsers that don't support pushState pjax fully degrades.
Overview
pjax is not fully automatic. You'll need to setup and designate a containing element on your page that will be replaced when you navigate your site.
Consider the following page.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<!-- styles, scripts, etc -->
</head>
<body>
<h1>My Site</h1>
<div class="container" id="pjax-container">
Go to <a href="/page/2">next page</a>.
</div>
</body>
</html>
We want pjax to grab the URL /page/2
then replace #pjax-container
with
whatever it gets back. No styles or scripts will be reloaded and even the <h1>
can stay the same - we just want to change the #pjax-container
element.
We do this by telling pjax to listen on a
tags and use #pjax-container
as the target container:
$(document).pjax('a', '#pjax-container')
Now when someone in a pjax-compatible browser clicks "next page" the content of #pjax-container
will be replaced with the body of /page/2
.
Magic! Almost. You still need to configure your server to look for pjax requests and send back pjax-specific content.
The pjax ajax request sends an X-PJAX
header so in this example (and in most cases) we want to return just the content of the page without any layout for any requests with that header.
Here's what it might look like in Rails:
def index
if request.headers['X-PJAX']
render :layout => false
end
end
If you'd like a more automatic solution than pjax for Rails check out Turbolinks.
Also check out RailsCasts #294: Playing with PJAX.
Installation
bower
Via Bower:
$ bower install jquery-pjax
Or, add jquery-pjax
to your app's bower.json
.
"dependencies": {
"jquery-pjax": "latest"
}
standalone
pjax can be downloaded directly into your app's public directory - just be sure you've loaded jQuery first.
curl -LO https://raw.github.com/defunkt/jquery-pjax/master/jquery.pjax.js
WARNING Do not hotlink the raw script url. GitHub is not a CDN.
Dependencies
Requires jQuery 1.8.x or higher.
Compatibility
pjax only works with browsers that support the history.pushState
API. When the API isn't supported pjax goes into fallback mode:
$.fn.pjax
calls will be a no-op and $.pjax
will hard load the given URL.
For debugging purposes, you can intentionally disable pjax even if the browser supports pushState
. Just call $.pjax.disable()
. To see if pjax is actually supports pushState
, check $.support.pjax
.
Usage
$.fn.pjax
Let's talk more about the most basic way to get started:
$(document).pjax('a', '#pjax-container')
This will enable pjax on all links and designate the container as #pjax-container
.
If you are migrating an existing site you probably don't want to enable pjax everywhere just yet. Instead of using a global selector like a
try annotating pjaxable links with data-pjax
, then use 'a[data-pjax]'
as your selector.
Or try this selector that matches any <a data-pjax href=>
links inside a <div data-pjax>
container.
$(document).pjax('[data-pjax] a, a[data-pjax]', '#pjax-container')
Arguments
The synopsis for the $.fn.pjax
function is:
$(document).pjax(selector, [container], options)
selector
is a string to be used for click event delegation.container
is a string selector that uniquely identifies the pjax container.options
is an object with keys described below.
pjax options
key | default | description
----|---------|------------
timeout
| 650 | ajax timeout in milliseconds after which a full refresh is forced
push
| true | use pushState to add a browser history entry upon navigation
replace
| false | replace URL without adding browser history entry
maxCacheLength
| 20 | maximum cache size for previous container contents
version
| | a string or function returning the current pjax version
scrollTo
| 0 | vertical position to scroll to after navigation. To avoid changing scroll position, pass false
.
type
| "GET"
| see $.ajax
dataType
| "html"
| see $.ajax
container
| | CSS selector for the element where content should be replaced
url
| link.href | a string or function that returns the URL for the ajax request
target
| link | eventually the relatedTarget
value for pjax events
fragment
| | CSS selector for the fragment to extract from ajax response
You can change the defaults globally by writing to the $.pjax.defaults
object:
$.pjax.defaults.timeout = 1200
$.pjax.click
This is a lower level function used by $.fn.pjax
itself. It allows you to get a little more control over the pjax event handling.
This example uses the current click context to set an ancestor as the container:
if ($.support.pjax) {
$(document).on('click', 'a[data-pjax]', function(event) {
var container = $(this).closest('[data-pjax-container]')
$.pjax.click(event, {container: container})
})
}
NOTE Use the explicit $.support.pjax
guard. We aren't using $.fn.pjax
so we should avoid binding this event handler unless the browser is actually going to use pjax.
$.pjax.submit
Submits a form via pjax.
$(document).on('submit', 'form[data-pjax]', function(event) {
$.pjax.submit(event, '#pjax-container')
})
$.pjax.reload
Initiates a request for the current URL to the server using pjax mechanism and replaces the container with the response. Does not add a browser history entry.
$.pjax.reload('#pjax-container', options)
$.pjax
Manual pjax invocation. Used mainly when you want to start a pjax request in a handler that didn't originate from a click. If you can get access to a click event
, consider $.pjax.click(event)
instead.
function applyFilters() {
var url = urlForFilters()
$.pjax({url: url, container: '#pjax-container'})
}
Events
All pjax events except pjax:click
& pjax:clicked
are fired from the pjax
container, not the link that was clicked.
pjax:send
& pjax:complete
are a good pair of events to use if you are implementing a
loading indicator. They'll only be triggered if an actual XHR request is made,
not if the content is loaded from cache:
$(document).on('pjax:send', function() {
$('#loading').show()
})
$(document).on('pjax:complete', function() {
$('#loading').hide()
})
An example of canceling a pjax:timeout
event would be to disable the fallback
timeout behavior if a spinner is being shown:
$(document).on('pjax:timeout', function(event) {
// Prevent default timeout redirection behavior
event.preventDefault()
})
Server side
Server configuration will vary between languages and frameworks. The following example shows how you might configure Rails.
def index
if request.headers['X-PJAX']
render :layout => false
end
end
An X-PJAX
request header is set to differentiate a pjax request from normal XHR requests. In this case, if the request is pjax, we skip the layout html and just render the inner contents of the container.
Check if there is a pjax plugin for your favorite server framework.
Response types that force a reload
By default, pjax will force a full reload of the page if it receives one of the following responses from the server:
Page content that includes
<html>
whenfragment
selector wasn't explicitly configured. Pjax presumes that the server's response hasn't been properly configured for pjax. Iffragment
pjax option is given, pjax will simply extract the content to insert into the DOM based on that selector.Page content that is blank. Pjax assumes that the server is unable to deliver proper pjax contents.
HTTP response code that is 4xx or 5xx, indicating some server error.
Affecting the browser URL
If the server needs to affect the URL which will appear in the browser URL after
pjax navigation (like HTTP redirects work for normal requests), it can set the
X-PJAX-URL
header:
def index
request.headers['X-PJAX-URL'] = "http://example.com/hello"
end
Layout Reloading
Layouts can be forced to do a hard reload when assets or html changes.
First set the initial layout version in your header with a custom meta tag.
<meta http-equiv="x-pjax-version" content="v123">
Then from the server side, set the X-PJAX-Version
header to the same.
if request.headers['X-PJAX']
response.headers['X-PJAX-Version'] = "v123"
end
Deploying a deploy, bumping the version constant to force clients to do a full reload the next request getting the new layout and assets.