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: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: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: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...

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. :)