UI libraries / InstantSearch.js / Widgets

history

Signature 
history({
  // Optional parameters
  windowTitle: function,
  createURL: function,
  parseURL: function,
  writeDelay: number,
  getLocation: function,
  push: function,
  start: function,
  dispose: function,
  cleanUrlOnDispose: boolean,
});
Import
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import { history } from 'instantsearch.js/es/lib/routers';
See code examples

About this widget

You are currently reading the documentation for InstantSearch.js V4. Read our migration guide to learn how to upgrade from V3 to V4. You can still access the V3 documentation for this page.

The history router is the default for the instantsearch object’s routing option.

The router provides an API that lets you customize some of its behaviors. To get a sense of what you can do with the API, see the Routing URLs guide.

Examples

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instantsearch({
  // ...
  routing: {
    router: history(),
  },
});

Options

Parameter Description
windowTitle
type: function
Optional

This function lets you dynamically customize the window title based on the provided routeState. It’s called every time users refine the UI and the history timer completes.
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history({
  windowTitle(routeState) {
    const indexState = routeState.indexName || {}

    if (!indexState.query) {
      return 'MyWebsite - Results page'
    }

    return `MyWebsite - Results for: ${indexState.query}`
  },
});
createURL
type: function
Optional

This function lets you directly change the format of URLs that are created and rendered for the browser URL bar or widgets. It’s called every time InstantSearch needs to create a URL. The provided options are:

  • qsModule (object): a module that can parse a query string or stringify an object. You can get more information from the qs documentation.
  • location (object): an alias to the implementation defined in getLocation. By default, it returns window.location.
  • routeState (object): the routeState created by the provided stateMapping. When absent, this is an untouched uiState.
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history({
  createURL({ qsModule, location, routeState }) {
    const { origin, pathname, hash } = location;
    const indexState = routeState['instant_search'] || {};
    const queryString = qsModule.stringify(routeState);

    if (!indexState.query) {
      return `${origin}${pathname}${hash}`;
    }

    return `${origin}${pathname}?${queryString}${hash}`;
  },
});
parseURL
type: function
Optional

This function is responsible for parsing the URL string back into a routeState. It must be customized if you customized the createURL function. It’s called every time a user loads or reloads a page, or when they click on the back or next buttons of the browser. The provided options are:

  • qsModule (object): a module that can parse a query string or stringify an object. You can get more information from the qs documentation.
  • location (object): an alias to the implementation defined in getLocation. By default, it returns window.location.
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history({
  parseURL({ qsModule, location }) {
    return qsModule.parse(location.search.slice(1));
  },
});
writeDelay
type: number
default: 400
Optional

This option controls the number of milliseconds the router waits before writing the new URL to the browser. You can think about it this way: “400 ms after the last user action, the URL is pushed to the browser”. This helps reduce:

  1. The number of different history entries. If you type “phone”, you don’t want to have 5 history entries and thus have to click 5 times on the back button to go back to the previous search state
  2. The performance overhead of updating the browser URL too often. There are recurring but hard to track performance issues associated with updating the browser URL too often: these issues result from browser extensions reacting to every change.

400 ms is a typically a pretty good writeDelay.
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history({
  writeDelay: 400,
});
getLocation
type: function
default: () => window.location
Optional

This function lets you return a custom implementation of Location. It enables support for routing in server environments where window isn’t available.

By default, it generates an error if there isn’t a custom implementation outside a browser environment.
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  history({
    getLocation() {
      if (typeof window === 'undefined') {
        const url = '...'; // retrieved from the server context
        return new URL(url);
      }

      return window.location;
    },
  });
push
type: function
Optional

This function lets you customize the behavior of the router when it pushes a new URL so that you can delegate it to a third party router or set a custom history state. It’s called every time users refine the UI and the history timer completes. The provided option is:

  • url (string): the URL which needs to be pushed to the browser.
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  history({
    push(url) {
      thirdPartyRouter.push(url);
    }
  });
start
type: function
Optional

This function is called when the router starts. You can use it to synchronize InstantSearch’s router with a third party router by hooking events to it. The provided option is:

  • onUpdate: () => void: a function that needs to call to inform InstantSearch that the URL has changed.
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  history({
    start(onUpdate) {
      thirdPartyRouter.addEventListener('routeChange', () => {
        onUpdate();
      });
    }
  });
dispose
type: function
Optional

This function is called when the router gets disposed of. You can use it to detach events you may have set in start. The provided option is:
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  let handler;

  history({
    start(onUpdate) {
      handler = () => onUpdate();
      thirdPartyRouter.addEventListener('routeChange', handler);
    },
    dispose() {
      thirdPartyRouter.removeEventListener('routeChange', handler);
    }
  });
cleanUrlOnDispose
since: v4.63.0
type: boolean
default: true
Optional

This option controls whether the URL is cleaned up from active refinements when the router is disposed of. It’s useful when the search experience is in a modal, to remove query parameters from the URL when the modal is closed.
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  history({
    cleanUrlOnDispose: false,
  });
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InstantSearch.js v4