Update
Based on Manipulating the browser history, passing the empty string as second parameter of pushState
method (aka title) should be safe against future changes to the method, so it's better to use pushState
like this:
history.pushState(null, '', '/en/step2');
You can read more about that in mentioned article
Original Answer
Use history.pushState
like this:
history.pushState(null, null, '/en/step2');
Update 2 to answer Idan Dagan's comment:
Why not using
history.replaceState()
?
From MDN
history.replaceState() operates exactly like history.pushState() except that replaceState() modifies the current history entry instead of creating a new one
That means if you use replaceState
, yes the url will be changed but user can not use Browser's Back button to back to prev. state(s) anymore (because replaceState
doesn't add new entry to history) and it's not recommended and provide bad UX.
Update 3 to add window.onpopstate
So, as this answer got your attention, here is additional info about manipulating the browser history, after using pushState
, you can detect the back/forward button navigation by using window.onpopstate
like this:
window.onpopstate = function(e) {
// ...
};
As the first argument of pushState
is an object, if you passed an object
instead of null
, you can access that object in onpopstate
which is very handy, here is how:
window.onpopstate = function(e) {
if(e.state) {
console.log(e.state);
}
};
Update 4 to add Reading the current state:
When your page loads, it might have a non-null state object, you can read the state of the current history entry without waiting for a popstate
event using the history.state
property like this:
console.log(history.state);
Bonus: Use following to check history.pushState
support:
if (history.pushState) {
// \o/
}