I noticed that new Flash Yahoo! maps interface uses location parameters using URLs hash (text that you can see after # sign).
Apparently it’s quite known way of storing page state when developing AJAX applications and I see several reasons to use it in application like GvsY:
- It can be updated without reloading the page and therefore can be made always up to date
- It removes a need for separate permalink because you can bookmark the page at any moment and always get working link (you can click “del.icio.us” link at any moment to store specific location)
- It helps keep the page in the browsers cache without re-requesting it separately for each location
- Geographical location fits anchor paradigm pretty well since anchor is a “location within a document” and since this document is AJAX page representing the world map, this location can be geographical too
I liked the idea and that’s why I replaced passing parameters through query string with passing them using hash (or anchor if it sounds better). Enjoy!