Source: https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-is-infinite-scrolling/30804

“Infinite Scrolling” is a term for what is happening if you’re scrolling through a page filled with content and - as, or before, you reach the bottom - more content is loaded automatically

https://learndiscourse.org/public/resources/infinite-scrolling.mp4

Discourse attempts to utilise infinite scrolling in a way that solely adds to the user’s reading experience, and never detracts from it.

  • Discourse takes full advantage of HTML5’s History API.
  • As you scroll, the browser address bar is updated according to your reading position.
  • Back/forward buttons work as expected.
  • The pagination widget tells you how far along you are, and lets you jump to the beginning, end, or an exact postID of your choice.
  • Only JSON calls are made. No site elements need to be redrawn in order to load more content, which means minimal bandwidth usage.

Further Reading

  • Infinite Scrolling That Works - eviltrout.com
  • Infinite Scrolling - Let’s get to the bottom of this - smashingmagazine.com