Are there any javascript libraries for working with hashbang/shebang (#!) urls?

Question

With all the negative press over Twitter and Gawker's use of hashbang urls I'm having a very hard time finding any examples/libraries for how to actually use them.

I'd like to use hashbang urls in a javascript carousel on our website so we can link directly to a specific page of the carousel.

Are there any good cross-browser libraries or examples (preferably non-jQuery, since we use Prototype) for both pushing new urls to the page location and for parsing the url on page load?

Answer 1

We've been working on a library that does URL route mapping: https://github.com/OpenGamma/RouteMap if you're still looking for one.

Answer 2

https://github.com/browserstate/History.js I have no experience with it as I use BBQ Jquery, but it looks like it should solve your problems.

Answer 3

Sammy.js uses them to create handlers like the ones used in Sinatra.

Answer 4

Google Closure Library has a really cool implementation for browser history stack. You can reach history source code from here.

To use Closure Library history manager you should define a hidden input. There is the trick. If you don't give a input field to class, it will create one for you, but it will try to append it DOM with document.write because of cross browser support. The best and easy way is providing a hidden input.

Here is a simple implementation of goog.History.

var history = new goog.History(false, '', document.getElementById('historyInput'));
goog.events.listen(history, goog.history.EventType.NAVIGATE, function() {
    console.log(history.getToken());
});
history.setEnabled(true);

Then navigate to some hashed urls in your page and you should see your changed hash in your console as log.