Make browser delete specific history states

Question

I have an ajax controlled website, where I have two types of pages, displayed to the user. For the simplicity let's call them MAINPAGEs and SUBPAGEs. MAINPAGEs contain information, and SUBPAGEs are all forms, where the user can add or modify existing information of a MAINPAGE for example.

If my site is visited by a user with HTML5 compatible browser, I use HistoryJS to update the url when he/she navigates on my website. Let's pressume the following example:

The user entered my website and navigated to the following pages in the following order, and his history looks something like this:

MAINPAGE(1) --> MAINPAGE(2) --> SUBPAGE(1) --> SUBPAGE(2)

When the user completes the form on SUBPAGE(2), I want to redirect him immediatly to the last MAINPAGE he visited. So for example when the user completes the form, I would like that the users history to be this:

MAINPAGE(1) --> MAINPAGE(2)

Visually, I am able to achieve this, everything works correctly, but afterwards, in a HTML5 browser, if I press the native back key on the browser, the page tries to revert to SUBPAGE(1), the correct back state from the initial history.

Is it achievable, to delete some of the history states, and if yes, how can I do that?

Here's the code I use so far:

ConverserNavigation.prototype.getPreviousMainAction = function() {
 // NOTE: the code that deals with non HTML5 compatible browsers, 
 // was removed because everything works fine there
 var startFrom, found=false;

 if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) startFrom=History.getState().data.id;    
 // if browser is HTML5 compatible, get the current state from History object, 
 // which is a HistoryJS object

 while ((!found) && (startFrom>0)) // find the last MAINPAGE visited by user
 {
     startFrom--;
     if (this.historyData[startFrom].pageData.page != 'quickactions') found=true;   
 }



 if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) History.replaceState({id:startFrom}, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.title, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.url);
 // replace the current history state, with the one to where we want to revert

 this.currentNavigationId=startFrom;
 this.back(); // render the ui to navigate back to the previous page, works as intended
 for (var i=this.currentNavigationId;i<this.historyData.length;i++) delete this.historyData[i]; // delete the unused history data

}

Answer 1

I've managed to solve this issue by modifying my code the following way:

Replaced this line:

if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) History.replaceState({id:startFrom}, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.title, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.url);

with this:

if (this.HistoryJS.status==true) {
    History.go(goBack); //goBack is the number of states I have to backtrack
    this.HistoryJS.manualStateChange=false; // telling the browser to not fire my own UI updating functions
    History.back(); // navigating one more state back in the History object
    History.pushState({id:startFrom}, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.title, this.historyData[startFrom].urlData.url); // recreating the original state in the History.
    this.HistoryJS.manualStateChange=true; // restarting the UI update functions on pop or push events
}