Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Building a Better Back Button

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the beat-a-path-to-your-website dept.

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.'"

4 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. Back button. by 13Echo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I stopped using my back button when I used to use Opera. Tabbed browsing eliminated my need for a back button (in most cases), and kept my browsing organized. Now, Mozilla and Phoenix support this. It's a great feature. Try using it and you will see that your back button gets only a small fraction of the use that it once had.

    1. Re:Back button. by Apreche · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I use phoenix, and I use tabbed browsing. But it has definitely not eliminated the need for a back button. I still use it quite often. Given, not as often as I used to, but saying tabs eliminate the need for the back button is silly. I open a link in a new tab, when it makes sense to. I mean, sure you can emulate this new back button by opening everything in a new tab, and never closing them, but that's rather silly. I also use my bookmarks very effectively. According to these guys I am in the minority. I have 7 folders of bookmarks, each with 4 to 10 pages in them. Every day I go down one by one and open the folders in tabs, one at a time, until I've visited all my sites. Saves lots of time.
      But, if I'm browsing around I might keep google in one tab, and then when I click a search result, open it in a new tab. But I'm not going to put every page of a 10 page article in a new tab. And if I'm in a forum, I'm not going to open everything in a new tab either. I'll end up having un-updated threads, post windows, and a big mess.
      So, I use the back button less, but not that much less. And I use tabbed browsing and bookmarks about as efficiently as you can. Can I get this new better back button as a phoenix plugin?

      --
      The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
  2. Loving Snap-back by Space+Coyote · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I personally love the Snap-back feature built into Safari, where, for example, if you do a google search, go to a result page, go several links deep and realize this isn't what you want, you just click the snap-back button and you're right back to your search results. This goes a long way to reducing my dependence on tabbed browsing, and is probably more intuitive for novice websurfers.

    It works in a generic way for all websites, too, not just google, which is great.

    --
    ___
    Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
  3. Why not a 'tree' back button? by slashbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    One thing that has always irritated me about the back button is the lack of a 'tree' effect. In the notation of the paper, lets say I did this:
    a->b->c->d<=>c<=>b->e

    Now with the stand back button, or even their modified results, I tend to see:

    [b,a], where what I would like to see is something like:

    [b, [c,d] , a]

    I like mouse gestures, and I find the only one I really ever use is back, and tabbed browsing does get rid of a lot of the single back, but I'm suprised that this 'tree' view hasn't been investigated/implemented.