Building a Better Back Button

Justin Macfarlane writes "From Stuff: 'Net surfers use the back button more than any other key. A computer scientist has made the command more useful, writes Will Harvie.'"

Comments

2002 Dupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dupe from Last Year.

Link is to a PDF, here is the Google cache

[m00nun1t]

Google cache here.

Re:Link is to a PDF, here is the Google cache

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks !

Link was to a worthless pdf that didn't even render; how smart can that computer scientist be, if s/he can't even make a working web page ?

Re:Well,

[Hall]

In IE, Opera, and at one time, Mozilla, your "back"-space key worked the same as the back button.

Mouse Gestures

[Professor North]

I've been a Phoenix user for some time now, and I really find it superior to IE in many ways. Why? Tabbed browsing, the ability to customize it, great community support, and the most important factor to me.... the Optimoz project and it's implementation of mouse gestures.

I'd estimate that I use Phoenix 99.9% of the time I'm browsing, thus... I use IE sparingly. When I do use IE, I can notice the difference in ease of use almost immediately.

To me, there is no dilemma in terms of what browser to use. Phoenix/Mozilla and far superior to IE, not to even mention Opera's superiority to it.

Re:Back button.

[inerte]

Don't forget that you can go back a page with your mouse. Deafult configuratios is hold right button and click left button.

Forward is reverse, hold left and click right.

And since Opera (by deefault) doesn't reload backed or forwarded pages, this operation is very fast.

Not to mention gestures: Hold right button and move mouse to the left, you are back. Hold right button and move mouse to the right, and you go forward.

Frankly, Opera kick ass ;-)

Re:Gestures are the way....

[evilquaker]

The biggest problem that I have with mozilla is its lack of gesture support.

Mozilla has gestures: http://optimoz.mozdev.org. The gestures are even configurable (unlike Galeon's) with the prefs.js file.

Re:Gestures are the way....

[friedmud]

Actually moz has had gestures for a while: http://optimoz.mozdev.org/.

But something even better than gestures are the pie menus (found on the same page above, but also at: http://www.gamemakers.de/mozilla/radialcontext/) they are like gestures with a gui (indeed after you use them for a while you never look at the pie-menu any more, except to find obscure actions).

My favorite: RightClickandHold->UpRight->Down->Release (Closes the current tab)

Derek

Re:Gestures are the way....

[lostgnu]

Um, mozilla actually supports gestures. I've been using them to great browsing for sometime now.

Look at http://optimoz.mozdev.org and Radical Context for Mozilla.

Personally I feel Radical Context is better than simple gestures, but YMMV.

Re:Very IE biased, isn't it?

[zonix]

I turn everything on in 'Tabbed browsing' preferences. In addition to 'open in background' enable:

- Ctrl+click and middle-click (opens in new tab)
- Ctrl+Enter (from URL field, opens in new tab)

This should be the default setup, really. Works wonder for downloading pr0n: press and hold down control key, click every thumbnail in sight, and the links will open in separate tabs in the background.

:-) z

Re:Back button.

[nil_null]

I really like what Opera did with the Forward button. Do a Google search, and you can use the Forward button (or the equivalent keyboard keys) to go forwards through the search result. I just tried it on a review site and it worked on one of the reviews! It appears that Opera will allow you to use forwards on any page with a "Next" link.

I've been waiting for this feature for a long time, to the point that I've thought of writing it myself. As a simple solution, I thought about making a macro that used Mozilla's type-ahead find to click on Next. I got tired of scrolling down to the end of the page and finding and clicking the Next button over and over again.

Well, now Opera has this much needed feature, and hopefully the other browsers will copy it from them.

Back button improvement? Nah, forward button is what needs the improvement...

Re:Back button.

[Anonymous Coward]

Open bookmarks one by one? Tedious.

At least Galeon has "Open folder in tabs" feature, which conveniently opens every bookmark in a bookmark folder in tabs. Very nice. I wish Mozilla would implement it too (as there's no Win-Galeon).

Re:it be nice

[andrew_0812]

I am assuming that he means that some sites have a redirect and then if you hit the back button, it goes back to the redirect page, and then back to the page you are on. We have that problem with our content filtering provider at work. If they deem some site inappropriate, they pop up a blocker page. If you hit back, it tries to load the offensive page again, and you end up back at the blocker page. You just have to use the drop down menu on the back button.

I have never had a page that could disable the back button, so I assume this is what he means. Of course, we all know what happens when we assume...

Re:What would be nice..

[Ctrl-Z]

Well, if that's adequate for you, then you should really use the Preferences Toolbar. It gives you the Fonts/Colors/Images/JavaScript/User Agent configuration in your toolbar.

I think the point though was that you can't do that until the tab is loading or loaded.

What about an updated Forward button?

[ldopa1]

I would like to see a change in the Forward button, not the back button.

If I go to a page on a website (page A), visit a page from there (page B), and then go back to page A to visit yet another page from there (Page C), I would like to be able to go back to page A again, and then when I hit the forward button, be offered the chance to go to either page B or C. Kind of a tree arrangement.

Another alternative is to emulate Opera's Hotlist functionality - Have the hotlist dynamically build a folder-view type tree for each site I visit.

Aka, when I go to (for example) Realtor.com, I want to be able to go back to the search page and add more options just by going over to the hotlist and clicking on the Search "folder", three clicks back.

I think I might have to prototype this..

Add this to your UserContent.css...

[interactive_civilian]

Or whatever your browser uses for user-defined style-sheets:

/* Blacklist link (Mozilla) -- Blocks goatse.cx */
a[href*="goatse.cx/"]
{
text-decoration: line-through ! important;
color: brown ! important;
}

that will mark all goatse.cx links brown with a line through them. Never be fooled again.

My apologies as I forget who to credit for this, but is was posted in a recent Slashdot story about how to block ads and such using your UserContent.css or whatever equivalent. I hope this helps to make your browsing a less visually-dangerous experience as it has for mine.

Cheers. :)

Key presses, buttons and clicks, oh my..

[Colven]

"Net surfers use the back button more than any other key"

When did they turn the "back button" into a key? Is there an "any" key now, too?

Anyhoo... I use Alt + left/right directional keys to "scroll" through IE's history, and I tab through links on the page... barbaric, I know. I don't like reaching for the mouse any more than I have too... especially now that my stylus is dead and I've ripped the top off of my mouse so that I have to push the little switches inside... :( .

I hate mieces to pieces.