Ajax 2.0 and Back Button Functionality
Saturday, 10. June 2006, 10:51:08
To begin the list of issues, the most recent spotlight in the web development community is Ajax, or Asynchronous Java and XML. This is basically an RPC-JSON model using the DOM framework.
Unfortunately some of the shortcomings of this technology is that while you are able to dynamically request and load content without a page shift -- it essentially breaks bookmarking and back/forward button functionality.
Luckily our friends at www.google.com, www.mozilla.org, www.dojotoolkit.org, and other ajax 2.0 framework pioneers, have found ways to work around this issue.
Unfortunately, Opera remains the sole browser that no developer is able to work with. Why? It is beyond my reasoning as to why Opera cannot handle javascript or event handlers properly like Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, or Safari can.
It seems that, unlike all other browsers, when a user hits the back button, no event is generated by opera. When in an AJAX-enabled website, using hash marks as history (ie domain.com#section) going back does not even trigger any events that are detectable by javascript. This inherently makes it pretty damn impossible for developers to find a solution to the back button script.
As a testament, even google's gmail functionality is broken by opera's lack of event handling.
Unfortunately some of the shortcomings of this technology is that while you are able to dynamically request and load content without a page shift -- it essentially breaks bookmarking and back/forward button functionality.
Luckily our friends at www.google.com, www.mozilla.org, www.dojotoolkit.org, and other ajax 2.0 framework pioneers, have found ways to work around this issue.
Unfortunately, Opera remains the sole browser that no developer is able to work with. Why? It is beyond my reasoning as to why Opera cannot handle javascript or event handlers properly like Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, or Safari can.
It seems that, unlike all other browsers, when a user hits the back button, no event is generated by opera. When in an AJAX-enabled website, using hash marks as history (ie domain.com#section) going back does not even trigger any events that are detectable by javascript. This inherently makes it pretty damn impossible for developers to find a solution to the back button script.
As a testament, even google's gmail functionality is broken by opera's lack of event handling.
WIDGETIZE