Bootstrap Tab History

Integrates HTML5 history state tracking with bootstrap/tab.js. This enables users to use history.forward, history.back and location.reload when navigating between tabs, as well as bookmarking specific tabs.

To enable tracking on a tab element, simply set the data-tab-history attribute to true (or a string denoting a tab grouping).

Visit our GitHub Page to see it in action.

Add bootstrap-tab-history-rails to the Gemfile:

gem 'bootstrap-tab-history-rails'

and then add the following line to app/assets/javascripts/application.js:

//= require bootstrap-tab-history

Add bootstrap-tab-history.js to your JavaScripts.

Individual elements are configured by setting the following data attributes:

• data-tab-history - Required. Set to true to enable tracking on a tab. Can also be set to an arbitrary string value to support pages with multiple tab groups.
• data-tab-history-anchor-y-offset - When the anchor portion of the URI is used to activate a tab, scroll down to the given offset, rather than the element with the given id attribute. Set to null to disable. Only relevant if BootstrapTabHistory.options.showTabsBasedOnAnchor is true.
• data-tab-history-changer
  • 'push' - Use history.pushState to update history.state. This will allow the use of history.forward and history.back as users switch tabs.
  • 'replace' - Use history.replaceState to update history.state. This will leave users on the same page w.r.t. history.forward and history.back as they switch tabs.
• data-tab-history-update-url - If true, update the URL in the calls to history.pushState and history.replaceState. When false, null is passed as the third parameter to these calls.

For data attributes which are interpreted as "truthy" values (i.e. data-tab-history and data-tab-history-update-url), an empty string is treated as equivalent to true.

BootstrapTabHistory.options = {
  // Default value corresponding to the `data-tab-history-anchor-y-offset` attribute.
  defaultAnchorYOffset: 0,

  // Default value corresponding to the `data-tab-history-changer` attribute.
  defaultChanger: 'replace',

  // Default value corresponding to the `data-tab-history-update-url` attribute.
  defaultUpdateURL: false,

  // Should the anchor portion of the loaded URI be used to activate a single tab if no history was
  // present on page load.
  showTabsBasedOnAnchor: true
};

An extremely simple example can be found at data/example.html, with the relevant portion duplicated below.

<ul class="nav nav-tabs">
  <li class="active">
    <a  href="#1-1"
        data-toggle="tab"
        data-tab-history="true"
        data-tab-history-changer="push"
        data-tab-history-update-url="true">
      Tab 1:1
    </a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a  href="#1-2"
        data-toggle="tab"
        data-tab-history="true"
        data-tab-history-changer="push"
        data-tab-history-update-url="true">
      Tab 1:2
    </a>
  </li>
</ul>
<div class="tab-content">
  <div class="tab-pane active" id="1-1">
    Sample content for Tab 1:1.
  </div>
  <div class="tab-pane" id="1-2">
    Sample content for Tab 1:2.
  </div>
</div>