Turbolinks

Turbolinks makes following links in your web application faster. Instead of letting the browser recompile the JavaScript and CSS between each page change, and potentially spend extra HTTP requests checking if the assets are up-to-date, we keep the current instance alive and replace only the body and the title in the head. Think CGI vs persistent process.

This is similar to pjax, but instead of worrying about what element on the page to replace, and tailoring the server-side response to fit, we replace the entire body. This means that you get the bulk of the speed benefits from pjax (no recompiling of the JavaScript or CSS) without having to tailor the server-side response. It just works.

By default, all internal links will be funneled through Turbolinks, but you can opt out by marking links with data-no-turbolink.

No jQuery or any other framework

Turbolinks is designed to be as light-weight as possible (so you won't think twice about using it even for mobile stuff). It does not require jQuery or any other framework to work. But it works great with jQuery or Prototype or whatever else have you.

The page:update event

Since pages will change without a full reload with Turbolinks, you can't by default rely on dom:loaded to trigger your JavaScript code. Instead, Turbolinks uses the page:update event.

Triggering a Turbolinks visit manually

You can use Turbolinks.visit(path) to go to a URL through Turbolinks.

Available only for pushState browsers

Like pjax, this naturally only works with browsers capable of pushState. But of course we fall back gracefully to full page reloads for browsers that do not support it.

Work left to do