Why window.load isn't working when the request comes from outside the page, but otherwise it does?

Question

SCENARIO The web app workflow is the following:

Someone clicks on a a href element into a page. http://example.org/
The link is followed and then another page within the site is reached. http://example.org/page-2/
The link URL also contains a hash var.

(This hash var is what I intended to use in order to achieve the next point)

There is a content grid that must show the wanted part, this object was built with an out of the box CMS, so I preferably don't want to modify it. This also, only works when the user clicks on the very button filter.

(This filter is based entirely on events and not on "GUI visible" locations, thus I'm not able to call for an specific filter from the very url, the previous object -there was a previous object, yes- worked really good with hashes from URL, but the new doesn't.)

The content grid filter elements don't have any ids, they just have a data custom attribute to be identified.

And that's it.

The workaround is intended to be like this:

  $( window ).load(function() {
      var filter = window.location.hash.substr(1);
      if(filter == "keywordA") {
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-1"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordB"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-2"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordC"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-3"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordD"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-4"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordE"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-5"]').trigger('click');
      }
  });

Then, dark and unknown forces comes into place, because when I enter this in the address bar: http://example.org/page-2/#keywordD the DOM works well, as expected. The content grid displays exactly what I want.

But when I try to reach the same link but from an a href element within http://example.org/ it just doesn't do anything at all.

FURTHER EXPLANATION

I used window.load because that way the function is forced to be executed once everything is settled in the DOM, and after every single code instance of $(document).ready() functions, because the website already works with many of these.

And how does that work at all, `filter` is not being declared — Adam Buchanan Smith, Aug 29 '16 at 22:25
Is just before the `
` tag, no console errors at all. Filter is now declared (on the question). — Luis, Aug 29 '16 at 23:18

Stefan Wittwer · Answer 1 · 2016-08-29T22:41:51.110

Here's the problem: When navigating from the a link http://example.org/page-2/# to a different link that is the same page, but has a different hash var, like http://example.org/page-2/#keywordD, the site doesn't actually reload. This is default behaviour, because it's meant to jump to the element on the page with the id of the hash.

Luckily, there is an event for hash changes on the site.

'onhashchange'

Now depending on how your filtering works, you might want to call a function that does all the filtering (the one that does it on loading the page), or, if this is a server-side CMS thing, you might want to reload the page.

$(window).bind('hashchange', function(e) {
    // Enter your filter function here
    doFiltering();
});

or if reloading the page is more appropritate.

$(window).bind('hashchange', function(e) {
    document.location.reload();
});

I don't quite understand what you mean by "This filter is based entirely on events and not on 'GUI visible' locations", so you might want to elaborate a little more in a comment, if I misunderstood you, but I hope either one of these soloutions work for you.

That phrase refers to the object behavior, the filter works with the data-filter custom attribute not with an evident value for the user, as for example a hash change, I'd try to find another way. Also, the navigation trouble is not inside http://example.org/page-2/, I don't even need a hash there, the bad thing is when someone clicks on http://example.org/ to get to http://example.org/page-2/#keywordD, and the javascript/jQuery function just doesn't work. Many thanks for your time. — Luis, Aug 29 '16 at 22:50
I upvoted this because it could be useful for someone else, is very well explained. — Luis, Aug 30 '16 at 04:24

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

THE ANSWER

Somehow I was triggering the event before the handler was attached, despite the window.load event is supposedly intended to trigger functions when all the DOM is entirely loaded.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/2060275/1126953

Kudos to Noah.

Based on the previous answer I could manage to set the desired behavior as it follows:

$( window ).load(function() {
   setTimeout(function() {
      var filter = window.location.hash.substr(1);
      if(filter == "keywordA") {
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-1"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordB"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-2"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordC"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-3"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordD"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-4"]').trigger('click');
      }
      if(filter == "keywordE"){
        $('a[data-filter=".cat-5"]').trigger('click');
      }
    },10);
  });

Just a simple delay.

Many thanks for your time Stefan.

Glad you could sort it out :) – Stefan Wittwer Aug 30 '16 at 04:56 — Stefan Wittwer, Aug 30 '16 at 04:56

Why window.load isn't working when the request comes from outside the page, but otherwise it does?

2 Answers2

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