I've had an idea for a while to accelerate page changes on one site with AJAX. This is what I came up with.

function getAjaxObject()
{
xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest(); //Decent Browsers
if (!xmlhttp || xmlhttp == undefined || xmlhttp == null) xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");  //IE7+
if (!xmlhttp || xmlhttp == undefined || xmlhttp == null) xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); //IE6-
return xmlhttp;
}

function loadPage(url)
{
xmlhttp = getAjaxObject();
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
{
if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
{
document.getElementsByTagName("html")[0].innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
processTags();
}
}
xmlhttp.open("GET",url,true);
xmlhttp.send();
}

function processTags()
{
var atags=document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for (x in atags)
{
atags[x].onclick="loadPage('"+atags[x].href+"');";
atags[x].href="#"; //This also causes it to scroll to the top of the page.
}
}

processTags();

This basically replaces all the 'A' tags on a page with a call to an AJAX function that loads the new page w/o refreshing.

Obviously there are incompatibility issues with this. On Omnimaga, where I tested, posting is a bit wonky, you also can't click links to sites outside the current domain.

It is considerably faster loading pages for me, though.

Also, this doesn't take a considerable amount of real-world situations into consideration, so don't be surprised if it breaks more than it does good.

If you want to give it a try, here's the JS to paste in your address bar. This should, at least in theory, work with (most) any site.

javascript:head=document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];script=document.createElement('script');script.type='text/javascript';script.src='http://netham45.org/fastload.js?t=6';head.appendChild(script);void(0);

Or, click here.

It doesn't work for me. Plus, I don't think it makes stuff faster. You still have to load the page.

It doesn't actually reload the page, though. It's noticeably faster for me on a lot of sites, but it seems to break Opera randomly.

Edit: Appears to not work in FF at all.

Edit 2: Fixed in FF.

I'm seeing a slight performance boost in FF/Chrome. The effect seems to be a bit more pronounced in Opera. It's broken in IE (as if I had to say).

Edit: It'll be obvious when it works 'cause the address bar in your browser won't change.

I'M not sure if it's a good idea, given the problem some browsers have at handling AJAX stuff, especially Opera and IE.

Also I'm worried about SEO. Could this hurt our Google ranking?

Btw there's a bug with AJAX posting: When the post appears, my avatar doesn't get auto-resized until I reload the page.

Ah ok. I was worried about SEO and link pasting, because when I clicked copy link to clipboard, I got javascript:loadPage('http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3');void(0); instead of http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3 . I think this will make it more of a PITA than anything else. It could definitively be useful for some stuff, though.

Weird I didn't notice such slow speed on Omni except Thursday evening. The only page that sometimes take close to that is the posting stats page, because it's incredibly MySQL-intensive.

Oh ok phew lol. As for the Omnis tats page, I think the problem is that the default SMF page is already intensive, but then we added plenty of EzPortal in it, then extra stats added from another mod (monthly/daily/weekly posters) and then post ratings. This is why it was disabled for guests near our final days on 1and1.