Modifying a query string without reloading the page

Question

I am creating a photo gallery, and would like to be able to change the query string and title when the photos are browsed.

The behavior I am looking for is often see

Answer 1

If you are looking for Hash modification, your solution works ok. However, if you want to change the query, you can use the pushState, as you said. Here it is an example that might help you to implement it properly. I tested and it worked fine:

if (history.pushState) {
    var newurl = window.location.protocol + "//" + window.location.host + window.location.pathname + '?myNewUrlQuery=1';
    window.history.pushState({path:newurl},'',newurl);
}

It does not reload the page, but it only allows you to change the URL query. You would not be able to change the protocol or the host values. And of course that it requires modern browsers that can process HTML5 History API.

For more information:

http://diveintohtml5.info/history.html

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/API/DOM/Manipulating_the_browser_history