# Using '#' in URLs in an Ember app

**URL:** <https://discuss.emberjs.com/t/using-in-urls-in-an-ember-app/14247>\
**Category:** Design\
**Created:** [February 14, 2018, 3:12pm UTC](https://discuss.emberjs.com/t/using-in-urls-in-an-ember-app/14247 "2018-02-14T15:12:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jfschaff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/discuss.emberjs.com/jfschaff/32/13920_2.png) [@jfschaff](https://discuss.emberjs.com/u/jfschaff)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 3:12pm UTC](https://discuss.emberjs.com/t/using-in-urls-in-an-ember-app/14247/1 "2018-02-14T15:12:55Z")

</div>

A `#` char in a URL is generally used to refer to a specific section within a web page. It can be a paragraph or tab, or any kind of “section”.

For instance `/some/page#section-2` would be section 2 of page `/some/page`. But in single page applications, the interpretation of a `#` char in the URL depends on the implementation. For instance, in Gmail it is used for “folders” (actually “labels”):

- `https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox` is the “inbox” folder,
- `https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent` corresponds to sent messages, etc.

I’m trying to keep the standard web web logic in an Ember app. I have elements having ids like `m1`, `m2`, etc. in my page. If I have links such as

```
<a href="#m1">link to m1</a>

```

in the page and click them, the browser scrolls to the corresponding element.

**Now I would like to programmatically trigger a similar behaviour, but nothing seems to work.**

I have tried

- `transitionTo`: but it does not even trigger a transition (probably because it is a transition to the same page with just a different hash),
- changing `window.location.hash` directly: the hash changes, but the browser does not scroll to the element.

Any idea how to trigger this kind of scrolling behaviour in an Ember app?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dknutsen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/discuss.emberjs.com/dknutsen/32/16471_2.png) [@dknutsen](https://discuss.emberjs.com/u/dknutsen)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 3:41pm UTC](https://discuss.emberjs.com/t/using-in-urls-in-an-ember-app/14247/2 "2018-02-14T15:41:32Z")

</div>

Don’t have a lot of experience with this myself but I’d think anchor tags would conflict with Ember’s router. [This issue](https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/issues/12997) would seem to suggest they aren’t really supported. Again not an authority on this so it may still be possible.

As an alternative you could try something like [this addon](https://github.com/mike-north/ember-anchor)