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import { history } from 'instantsearch.js/es/lib/routers';

history({
  // Optional parameters
  windowTitle: function,
  createURL: function,
  parseURL: function,
  writeDelay: number,
  getLocation: function,
  push: function,
  start: function,
  dispose: function,
  cleanUrlOnDispose: boolean,
});

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About this widget

The history router is the default for the ais-instant-search wrapper’s routing prop. 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 Routing URLs.

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Examples

Vue
<template>
  <ais-instant-search
    [...] 
    :routing="routing"
  >
    <!-- Widgets -->
  </ais-instant-search>
</template>

<script>
import { history } from "instantsearch.js/es/lib/routers";

export default {
  data() {
    return {
      // ...
      routing: {
        router: history(),
      },
    };
  },
};
</script>

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Options

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windowTitle
function
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.
JavaScript
history({
  windowTitle(routeState) {
    const indexState = routeState.indexName || {};

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

    return `MyWebsite - Results for: ${indexState.query}`;
  },
});
​
createURL
function
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.
JavaScript
history({
  createURL({ qsModule, location, routeState }) {
    const { origin, pathname, hash } = location;
    const indexState = routeState || {};
    const queryString = qsModule.stringify(routeState);

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

    return `${origin}${pathname}?${queryString}${hash}`;
  },
});
​
parseURL
function
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.
JavaScript
history({
  parseURL({ qsModule, location }) {
    return qsModule.parse(location.search.slice(1));
  },
});
​
writeDelay
number
default:400
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:
  • 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
  • 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.
JavaScript
history({
  writeDelay: 400,
});
​
getLocation
function
default: () => window.location
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.
JavaScript
history({
  getLocation() {
    if (typeof window === "undefined") {
      const url = "..."; // retrieved from the server context
      return new URL(url);
    }

    return window.location;
  },
});
​
push
function
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.
JavaScript
history({
  push(url) {
    thirdPartyRouter.push(url);
  },
});
​
start
function
This function is called when the router starts. You can use it to synchronize InstantSearch’s router with a third party router by hooking event handlers to it. The provided option is:
  • onUpdate: () => void. A function that needs to call to inform InstantSearch that the URL has changed. It will read the current URL and update the UI state accordingly.
JavaScript
history({
  start(onUpdate) {
    thirdPartyRouter.addEventListener("routeChange", () => {
      onUpdate();
    });
  },
});
​
dispose
function
This function is called when the router gets disposed of. You can use it to detach event handlers you may have set in start. The provided option is:
JavaScript
let handler;

history({
  start(onUpdate) {
    handler = () => onUpdate();
    thirdPartyRouter.addEventListener("routeChange", handler);
  },
  dispose() {
    thirdPartyRouter.removeEventListener("routeChange", handler);
  },
});
​
cleanUrlOnDispose
boolean
default:true
since: v4.13.2
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.
JavaScript
history({
  cleanUrlOnDispose: false,
});
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