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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="http://wincn.net/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="http://wincn.net/2015/06/18/jquery-pjax%E4%BD%BF%E7%94%A8%E8%AF%B4%E6%98%8E/> 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.