Decide on default URI format for navigation

[vaadin-bot]

Originally by @hesara

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When pushState is supported for URLs of the form mysite.com/tori/category/123 without page reloads, there are several possible URL format strategies. To avoid changing the default URL format in a minor version, the default strategy should be decided on before Vaadin 7.

Note that this does not only apply to Navigator but also other mechanisms using the lower level fragment APIs directly.

The possible strategies are

• use "/" in new browsers, "#!" in old browsers
  • pro: modern look in most browsers
  • con: is using "a href" links, causes extra page reloads
• use "/" in all browsers
  • con: on old browsers, all navigation causes reloads
• use "#!" on all browsers
  • technically probably the best
  • pro: no extra reloads with any browser
  • pro: easy to integrate with search engine friendly URLs
  • con: ugly URLs
• use "#" on all browsers
  • old Vaadin 6 way
  • similar to "#!" but less search engine friendly

Multiple strategies may be supported, but the default should be decided on.

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Imported from https://dev.vaadin.com/ issue #9268

[vaadin-bot]

Originally by @jojule

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It also should be noted that when people navigate to a system initially, they do not write /# or /#! in the end of the URL. This would lead to one extra redirect if "#! on all browsers strategy".

The con for the strategy number 1 could probably be resolved like this: https://gist.github.com/1142129

Default is important and promoting modern, simple and fast web experience would be very desirable. It is also really important to get this right with 7.0, because we do not want to change the default in 7.1.

Thus +1 for:

• use "/" in new browsers, "#!" in old browsers
• support local links by canceling events what would cause reload when pushState change would be enough

[vaadin-bot]

Originally by @Artur-

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Should preferrably be decided before beta1.

[vaadin-bot]

Originally by @Artur-

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Vaadin 7.0.0.beta1 will only support fragments in all browsers, i.e. #! will always be used. The redirect from "http://myapp.com" to "http://myapp.com/#!" happens when a Navigator is taken into use (#9365).

The push state implementation will use #! only for IE8/IE9 (redirect using replaceState if #! is used in other browsers). See #9364 for more details.