Dynaimcally changing URL without reloading a page

[eluser]Josamoto[/eluser]
Hi all, and may I wish you all a Happy 2008!

I have a website that is run by CodeIgniter, Smarty and the JavaScript Ext 2 library. I just wanted to ask if it is possible to change the URL of a webpage, dynamically, but without having the entire page reload.

My web app has 5 tabs/menu buttons linking to 5 sub-pages. A click on each of these 5 buttons requests, via AJAX, the content to be loaded in my <div id="content_wrapper"></div> section. The result is that the page does not reload after each page change, so it does not reload for example CSS and JS that are not cached by the browser. The header and footer remains static with only the content section changing.

What happens is my site remains on the initial URL, http://www.cijoe.net/. So navigating to a new page does not change the URL to for example www.cijoe.net/home.html as I am using AJAX. I want the URL to change upon the AJAX request, but the page must not reload. Possible or should I abandon quest?

I think my request sounds impossible, but it's worth a try. Thanks for the help in advance!