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

Back button.

[13Echo]

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.

Re:Back button.

[Apreche]

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?

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 ;-)

Loving Snap-back

[Space Coyote]

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.

The ultimate back button.

[nesneros]

If I hit back enough do I end up using NCSA Mosaic? Or do I just end up in gopher?

Dupe, dupe, dupe, dupe of Earl, Earl, Earl

[EvilBuu]

If within half an hour of posting a story thirty readers have identified the story as a dupe, there must be some way the /. eds could just run submissions through a filter to detect dupes or not. 'Cause they sure ain't catching them on their own.

wait a minute

[loveandpeace]

it took them eight years to figure out that people use the Back button even though they don't understand it???

puh-leez. i want a job on this team.

Why not a 'tree' back button?

[slashbofh]

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.

Re:2002 Dupe?

[telstar]

Maybe that's how the new back button works. It takes you back to stuff you've seen a year ago.

I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

...I never use the back button, I only move forward. It's negativity like the back button that is ruining this country.

Coming Soon! Better FORWARD Button!

[Maul]

I have done extensive research and have figured out a way to build a better forward button as well.

Currently the forward button only works after you've hit the back button. This is highly inconvenient, because the forward button is useless when you fire up your browser.

However, my new improved forward button will allow web users to actually click ahead into the future so that they don't have to type the URL of the site they are about to visit. It does this with my patented Mind Matrix Technology (TM) that uses a complex mathematical formula to determine what the user wants to see next.