Unable to use “custom_args” or “vars” from front-end JavaScript

When working with with the public ajaxloadmore.filter() function on the front-end of a theme, there appears to be a bug that is preventing the use of custom_args and vars.

The following steps should allow for reproduction of the issue:

1. Enable debug mode in your theme’s functions.php file: add_filter( 'alm_debug', '__return_true' );
2. Add alm_render() to a page template.
3. On the front-end of a site, navigate to a page where the modified template is in use.
4. From the browser console, manually trigger the filter() method on the global ajaxloadmore instance:
   ajaxloadmore.filter('fade', 250, {customArgs: 'foo:bar;biz:bash'})
5. In the browser’s network tab, inspect the payload that was sent:

action: alm_get_posts
query_type: standard
id: 
post_id: 123
slug: your-page
canonical_url: https://your-test-site.example/
posts_per_page: 5
page: 0
offset: 0
post_type: post
repeater: default
seo_start_page: 1
order: DESC
orderby: date
custom_args: foo%3Abar%3Bbiz%3Abash

Also in the network tab, inspect the preview of the response that was sent:

{
    "meta": {
        "postcount": 5,
        "totalposts": 245,
        "debug": {
            "post_type": [
                "post"
            ],
            "posts_per_page": "5",
            "offset": 0,
            "order": "DESC",
            "orderby": "date",
            "post_status": "publish",
            "ignore_sticky_posts": true,
            "foo%3Abar%3Bbiz%3Abash": null,
            "alm_id": "",
            "paged": 1,
            "alm_query": "alm"
        }
    }
}

The payload shows that the data is being escaped before it has been sent, which is then preventing the parsing functions of the plugin from correctly reading the custom_args data. The plugin tries to split the custom_args data into key values pairs on semicolons and colons, but since those characters were escaped prior to being sent to Admin Ajax for handling, they are never read properly.