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Google Chrome To Disallow Backspace As a 'Back' Button (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Google Chrome is going to stop people from accidentally deleting everything they've been doing. A future version of the app will stop the backspace button from also functioning as a "back" button. The change has already been rolled out in some experimental versions of the app, and has upset some users. Developers have said that the feature is only being partly enabled for now, in case there is "sufficient outcry" and it needs to be rolled back. People regularly press the button thinking that they're deleting a word from a form, developers said, but then find that they weren't actually typing into that form and so accidentally go back, losing everything they've done.
It's /software/ or /application/ or /program/ !
Now get off my lawn!
Default behaviour should be backspace does NOT take you back a page. Leave a setting somewhere obvious to turn that particular function on again. Was that so hard?
That annoying behavior cost me some time too!
They are so stupid.
They have destroyed a good company.
For all the pain this has called me, I'm glad our national nightmare is finally over!
And if there is a form element with text in it that did not exist on page load, show an alert window on backspace outside of that textarea or input element and ask if the user is sure they want to go back a page because there is an element with user inputted text.
Seems pretty simple, they must be on something.
I can't count the number of times I've accidentally nudged the "back" button on my 5 button mice at or near the end of a
Backstop, nuff said: https://chrome.google.com/webs...
good? i guess.
I once saw a republican not be able to figure out what "pg dn" meant on a keyboard. Google must have hired a bunch of people that stupid.
My little brother works at Google. He says he vomits almost daily from all of the Trump shit spewed all over the office.
It took this many years until one browser vendor has noticed this usability problem? I have lost uncountable forms to this stupid feature. It works especially best when you are in a hurry or tired.
Make it an option (buried in the config) for those who want it, and turn it off by default.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
People regularly press the button thinking that they're deleting a word from a form, developers said, but then find that they weren't actually typing into that form and so accidentally go back, losing everything they've done.
Just save the contents and put them back if the user presses forward. I thought only Firefox devs were a waste of oxygen, but it seems they were merely copying Chrome devs.
And their support for Trump proves that.
Firefox will ask you whether you want to leave a page before going back if there's data entered on the page. Chrome should implement something similar.
People are far less scared of having *Gasp* options to change this sort of thing than UX shitters would ever admit.
Why not just delete the delete button from the keyboard? Many other 'meta-keys' have disappeared in order to dumb-down the keyboard. Keyboards used to have both backspace and delete, which did two slightly different things. Now my Macbook pro only has a delete button that acts like backspace (not delete), no home/end keys, and all sorts of other missing keys. So, just fucking delete the delete button too. Just like the 'Forward' and 'Refresh' buttons in Firefox. Dumb everything down for the people who do nothing but watch videos on their computers. And before you say, 'Those keys were removed to keep the keyboards small for smaller laptops'... ever hear of modifier keys like fcn, control, alt?
I would have gotten first post but I hit the backspace
I am a figment of my own imagination.
Yes, those Republicans and their constant drive to change things and break with tradition. Oh wait that's exactly the opposite of a typical Republican perspective. If you Americans have to crap on every discussion with this boring local politics, at least get your stupid stereotypes the right way (pun!).
Anyway, I have never purposefully hit backspace intending to page back (I use gestures or click the back button). I have accidentally lost stuff by hitting backspace (especially in "pseudo-textbox" type fancy input controls where the focus is not always clear). I'm sure there's people who won't like it, but I think it's a good change for most users.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Why not fix the actual problem of the forward button not returning them to the page with all of their work in tact?
Fucking idiot web browser developers. Can't think outside of the box about anything. It's always been a certain way, and so that's how it's supposed to be in their minds.
Millions of human hours likely measured in thousands of human lives
Yes, remove this misfeature. It's bitten me more than once. One stray click you didn't notice removing form input focus and bam!, you lose it all when you think you are still editing.
At the *very* least, implement a "are you sure you want to leave this page" confirmation. As annoying as that may be, far less worse than unwittingly losing your work.
I support this change. I've had multiple instances over the years where I'm filling out a complicated form, try to erase a couple characters by hitting the backspace key, and found myself going to previous pages and wiping out the work that I'd done. Honestly, I don't use the "Back" button enough to need a shortcut.
Now if only Macs would stop using the two-finger trackpad swipe gesture as a shortcut for back/forward buttons. I know you can turn it off (and I do on any Mac I sit down at), but the two-finger swipe is already used for scrolling, and it's a stupid move to have the same gesture do two different things in the same app.
alt + left arrow or right arrow are equivalent to the back and forward buttons. I know, I know, two buttons at once is sooooo hard, but you'll manage.
For the remaining billions of us who've lost countless hours of typing due to this stupid "feature", Hooray!
If I recall correctly, the Old (Presto) Opera had the correct way to manage this: If a person pressed back and then went Forward, ALL the data of the page forms was there again. It is such a pity, that there are no decent browsers since its collapse!
That's how they is.
No! I use that feature all the time. Together with vimium, it allows me to navigate while keeping my hands on the keyboard without having to reach for my mouse all the time.
I know alt+left arrow works too, but a chorded keyboard shortcut is a lot less convenient, and I'd still have to move my hand to the arrow cluster instead of staying close to home row.
Only if you teabag it
Nope! This is a site-specific feature, implemented in the code of the web page. It's not a feature in Firefox.
I'm using Firefox right now, and I just double-checked.
it does on mine
Good thing they're not removing alt-left and alt-right! Those are significantly saner keyboard shortcuts.
This is sort of weird. As a long time Opera user I never had a problem accidentally leaving the page. My browser always remembered what I'd typed and going forward again to the form page would have all my content as I'd left it.
IMO the problem isn't the backspace key, it's unfriendly browsers.
There is a Firefox ticket requesting a feature like the parent poster mentioned. It's only been open since the year 2000.
Since a website can tell the browser to pop a dialog asking the user to confirm before they leave, maybe that explains the low priority.
Disable the damn ESC key from doing anything as well. That has bitten me more than the Backspace key...
I thought today's browser automatically remembered the contents of the text fields if you hit back and then go forward again (using the forward button, not clicking the link again)??
I mean, IE and FireFox remember the contents of text fields if I hit back (or backspace) and it goes back a page. Hit forward and boom, text I entered is still there.
Granted, it's not a behaviour that works 100% because of the way some websites work (especially rich text fields), but it seems to work fairly well..
Doesn't Chrome remember it?
With Internet and browsers dominating existence, keyboards should be redesigned with common browser clickies built in and separate from editing keys.
Apropos of the subject, Chromebooks do exactly that. Who needs those function keys anyway?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
As far back as the first version of chrome, they've had problems handling backspaces correctly. If you hit backspace in an empty text field (or address bar!), it would register as a back button press. And how many years later, those "geniuses" at google are still trying to cover that up! Learn to test software, geniuses!
Yup, just disabled it in Vivaldi and (old) opera, thanks Chrome for reminding me to turn that awful binding off. There's already much better binding for that (usually mouse gestures for me) but you can configure them like you want in any sane browser.
Well, no, that's not why that's there. The reason 'flags' exists is because chrome doesn't branch. Any features that are in development go right in the main branch, so there's no costly merging. It has basically nothing to do with UI concerns; it's a result of the dev process.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I call bullshit. I have lost many FogBugz responses over the years because Firefox inexplicably decided that a Backspace keystroke in a case edit should be interpreted as a 'Previous page' command instead of deleting the previous character. When dealing with longer responses we now tend to write them in Atom, Notepad, etc. and copy-paste the final output into FogBugz so as to avoid the pain.
Relevant bug
Hey, Google, if your real motive here is truly to "save the (form) data", why not buy or license the use of the Lazarus extension's codebase and simply incorporate that into Chrome? Then you could leave our fucking backspace key mapped the way it's always been since 1995. The Lazarus extension for Firefox has been effectively negating that disaster for years now.
Kill the fucking Spacebar = down feature as well.
ABSOLUTE SEETHING RAGE at this feature.
People using spacebar to browse webpages should be punched in the throat. All three of them.
No, you are the one at fault for buying a crap laptop with Page Up/Down buttons behind an Fn key. Any decent laptop keyboard has it beside the Up arrow, with Home and End behind the Fn.
Having to use a Userscript to nullify stupid retarded decisions that have been with us for years annoys me greatly. /.
It pissed me off on HERE more than any site because this site has hotkeys out the ass based on single key presses.
Accidentally clicking outside a Titlebar and typing, having the page shook around like a bad parent shaking a baby to death. Awful awful features.
At least use Alt-[key],
Also, while you are at it, make Pause pause a webpages JS parser. And ctrl+Pause to step it.
Might as well add a useful feature in while killing 2 awful features.
No, not under Inspect Element, global option. Sometimes websites are written very poorly and have JS and event timers spamming the shit out of the parser because their devs don't know a damn thing about what they are doing.
The fancy mice, which you might want for other reasons, sprout buttons all over. If you aren't super careful, you'll hit one of the extra buttons. There is a back button.
Grrr. At first I didn't even know what was causing the glitches. It felt like I was going insane. I'd reach for the mouse or move the mouse, and suddenly I'd be on a different web page. Due to my web browsing style, with many tabs, it wasn't immediately obvious that I was even going back a page. Sometimes I'd hit a different button and it'd go forward.
I've hated backspace as a navigation option as well as space bar as page down. I have a page down button, I don't need the space bar to do it too. Use case, my toddler is perfectly happy to let me read the internet, so long as she can bang away on the biggest key on the keyboard (the space bar).
The one guy I know that works for google is a hardcore right wing. He posts trump shit and I have no idea if serious.
He's Australian, so I guess he doesn't really have a horse in teh race and it might be entirely posted for humours sake.
But there's something about this friend of mine that has me questioning if it actually is a joke or not.
There is an option for this in Firefox, although it is hidden in about:config
browser.backspace_action :
0 : go back one page (the default on Windows)
1 : scroll up (the default on linux before 2006-12-07)
2 : do nothing (the default on linux after 2006-12-07)
I like by backspace binding so on linux I change this. This should be the same for Chrome.
I don't remember losing form data because of this. The biggest cause of losing data is failed submissions (connection problem, website error, session expired, ...). In case it happens I have Lazarus which saved the day a couple of times. Instead of changing keybindings people are used to, form backup is what Chrome should do, so that you don't lose your data no matter what.
https://xkcd.com/1172/
"Is that dad? Either that or Batman's really let himself go."
.. while they're at it. Worst key combo ever. Hit it all the time. Don't try this at home.
How about saving the state before going back for any reason. Then the forward button can reload the state and you don't have to re-type anything.
That way, if any of the several other ways you might accidentally go back are also covered.
No it won't. You can easily test this yourself. Paste the following in a file: />
<input id="foo" value="Consectetur"
<textarea id="bar">Lorem ipsum</textarea>
First go to about:blank, then to your test file. Edit the contents of the fields. Click on the background. Press backspace. Voilà, your edits are lost.
If true (I wouldn't know, I don't use FogBugz) that's at least partly the fault of FogBugz, since when you press the forward arrow (or alt+right) the browser restores the form fields (at least, Firefox does) and this always works unless some buggy page scripting is trampling over the form fields.
Note: unless the web page has some really buggy scripting going on, you can just go forward (alt+right arrow) and the form is restored, with all your input intact.
Be usable by keyboard and mouse -- increasingly gone in many programs, especially frequently updated ones desperately trying to be hip
At least with backspace no longer going Back, Alt+Left will probably still go Back. And for all it apes Chrome, Firefox still has a traditional menu bar that you can show with the Alt key.
Then a web form could use JavaScript to remap Enter to act like Tab unless either A. Ctrl+Enter was pressed, or B. one of the call-to-action buttons at the end of the form is focused. Would this be enough?
Then it becomes a nuisance for read-only pages where fast key navigation is very useful.
Alt+Left, Alt+Right
it is the form developer's fault for not building a navigation confirmation into their page
With JavaScript, one can add a listener for the beforeunload event. But a lot of pop-up ads have abused onbeforeunload to add an "are you sure you want to close this ad?" alert. Besides, how should a form developer do this in an environment where JavaScript is blocked, such as NoScript, LibreJS, tracking blockers that mistakenly block the CDN hosting a script, or a corporate MITM proxy put in place "to block ransomware". That's why some Slashdot users have recommended using the heuristic of a text input or text area that the user has modified as a proxy for there being substantial unsaved changes.
When you are editing text, backspace edits text.
When you are not editing text, backspace takes you back.
Accidentally touching your laptop's trackpad with your palm can change the input state from "editing text" to "not editing text". So add a third line:
When you are editing text, but you accidentally touch part of your computer wrong, backspace takes you back.
Modifiers don't help, because Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End are also indispensable, as are Ctrl+Shit+Home and Ctrl+Shit+End.
Is your keyboard a piece of "Shit"?
Seriously, a compact keyboard might map Home and End to Fn+Left and Fn+Right. Then Ctrl+Home, Ctrl+End, Ctrl+Shift+Home, Ctrl+Shift+End would become Ctrl+Fn+Home, Ctrl+Fn+End, Ctrl+Shift+Fn+Home, and Ctrl+Shift+Fn+End. And if you aim your left pinky well, you can hit all three modifiers (Ctrl+Shift+Fn).
You must be a very slow typist if you take time to check, before each press of backspace, whether or not your palm has since contacted your laptop's trackpad to cause a click event that changes the focus.
In Firefox 46, forms that are part of the initial HTML document get restored properly, but forms created through scripted manipulation of the DOM, such as Slashdot's current reply form, usually don't. A workaround on Slashdot is to use the old reply form, which I can access by middle-clicking "Reply to This" or by right-clicking it and choosing "Open Link in New Tab".
If (cursor = in text field) { backspace text } Else { Go Back one page } EOF
And then they rediscover pull-to-refresh is still there.
I find the mouse forward and back buttons even more annoying and I don't want to install some bloated Logitech driver. So easy to grab the mouse and accidentally press those buttons, very annoying when in a browser based game for example.
But if the default has less ability for the old people to not screw up, so be it.
I've used the backspace when helping my dad with his computer and I tell him, "Go back a page" and he says "What? What for? Why? I did this and that and now you're making me do this again?!?! Ok fine fine! How do I go back a page?" Which then gets tedious to re-explain the reason I want him to go back and how to do it every time. He does this constantly while I'm showing him how to use his computer or accomplish a task with it. Unbelievably irritating and he blames me for him not listening or memorizing, e.g. "Oh, you're going to mess up my computer again." While I'm helping him get the viruses off that HE installed. I tend to just reach over while he's busy tormenting me and just tap the backspace key. Then I continue with the instructions and he's none the wiser, literally. I imagine having to reach between him and the computer to press two keys at once, i.e. alt + left arrow, is going to be awkward and lead to an extended argument. It also involves breaking the "privacy bubble" people have around their personal body to get at his keyboard. Which means I'm going to instead just have to argue with him about going back a page instead. This is going to suck. I get that people don't focus on the form they're entering data in and don't pay attention to the blinking cursor before pressing backspace, but I've never had this problem myself.
I was under the impression that this had little to do with the browser and more to do with how someone programmed the site. I see this behaviour quite inconsistently across both web forms and dodgy pop-up advertising that sneaks through the adblocker.
I have to say I've never triggered this one by accident. ctrl+Q on the other hand, fuck that one pisses me off. Half way between "next tab" and "close tab" should NOT be "shut down the whole fucking browser"!
Please stop fixing problems for the few, at the expense of pretty much everybody else. This is a problem you find repeatedly in pretty much all big name software today.
They could just have it so when you click back then forward, the form is automatically filled out with the data you left.
I think this is one the most awful decisions to use backspace key as back arrow in browsers.
Another good fix would be to have a “forward” button that returns them to the page they were on with everything intact.
Although to be honest, I’ve always thought that backspace was a stupid hotkey for “back.” It never worked consistently in any browser I’ve ever used, so I never got into the habit of using it.
I hated it on MSIE and I hate it everywhere where I encounter it.
Firefox is nice: typing something on a form and the backspace functionality is disabled.
Still I would like it to not even exist.
Why not ctrl-left oder something similar?
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
I was under the impression that this had little to do with the browser and more to do with how someone programmed the site. I see this behaviour quite inconsistently across both web forms and dodgy pop-up advertising that sneaks through the adblocker.
Perhaps the web sites that fuck with the focus of your cursor should be the ones you are mad at? Grabbing focus with a large shadowbox and a nag form about a spammy email newsletter is the problem, not the browser.
I like the shortcut, but I agree that some forms don't play nice with it and it is easy to accidentally flip back when you don't want to. Instead of stripping the feature, they should instead make it harder to accidentally trigger - something like ctrl+backspace.
...Then... Users won't have the problem mentioned here.
Why the hell would the backspace take me away from the web app that I'm currently working in?
This has been long overdue and should never have been implemented in the first place. I can't tell you how many god damn times I have had to refill and entire form just because of this bullshit behavior.
All hail to the ALT Left/Right arrows!
I am very excited about this announcement both because whoever came up with the original design "feature" was a horrible human being and deserves to fry in the afterlife, but also because it proves that i do not actually hate all change! Some change is good!
Now if you'll excuse me, i need to get back my losing fight to keep using the Classic/XP Windows UI, menu bars instead of ribbons, and the KitKat Google UI.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I often include code snippets or shell text in my emails, which I can format as Fixed Space (only one fixed space font, thanks Google), but there is no way I can tell in the web interface of GMail to insert tabs into email text to column align data. (Tab being used to navigate, not enter text).
How hard is to make TAB work like normal tab when inside a text entry box, or just be able to assign some other key sequence to tab (ctl+tab) or something and leave tab for what it was intended to do?
I have heard the old ALT+NUM_KEY pad works to insert a tab character, but that's a hack and useless for me anyway, since I primarily use a tenkeyless keyboard.
If there is a way, someone please enlighten me. Whenever I want to send a technical email, I compose it first in VIM and then I have to use copy/paste in Gmail. How they can't fix this oversight after years of being requested in the forums is beyond me.
I can reach right Alt with my right thumb and Left and Right with my right pinky. It's easy on a laptop, where the arrow keys are up under the right Shift key. I admit it's a stretch on a full-size desktop keyboard, but a desktop keyboard is more likely to have dedicated "multimedia keys" for Back and Forward. Or do browsers used with European keyboards map AltGr in such a way that AltGr+Left and AltGr+Right do not go back and forward?
You don't get to complain about time lost inputting data when you chose a fucking laptop keyboard and trackpad to input that data.
I chose a laptop because choosing otherwise would have resulted in not inputting data at all while I wait to arrive at a desk. Not all work situations in which one is expected to input data provide a desk on which to set a separate keyboard and mouse. Using a laptop while a passenger on a bus, train, or airplane is an example.
People who think their small convenience is worth everyone else freaking out because they lost minutes or hours worth of work suck.
You can:
- Alt-left
- click back-arrow with the mouse
- install an extension that gives you this special behavior - may you lose hours worth of work daily until you repent and uninstall it.
So you're back to square one then with a stupid UI choice (button used when filling in the form can direct a browser away from a page) and resorting to nagware with users? Because we all know how well nagware works.
No I'm well and truly mad at whoever thought there needs to be more than one back button on the keyboard, and whoever decided to make that a common non-escaped typing character. It was an abortion of a choice from the very beginning.
Ctrl+Shift+t
Viola - tab unclosed. Works in Chrome, FF, Opera.
Or do you use Windowed browsing?
The real problem isn't that "go back" loses your work.
The real problem is that "Go forward" doesn't take you back where you were.
Where I was is a state, not a URL.
I don't want the URL reloaded, I want the state of the page restored.
How does the page save the state
HTML5 local storage?
Local storage requires JavaScript. Users can block JavaScript from running, and proxies running on corporate networks can block JavaScript files from being retrieved.
I'm not sure what 'non-free' script means
The Free Software Foundation has released a browser extension called LibreJS that causes JavaScript not to run at all unless it can be identified as having been released under a free software license. But because you weren't aware of it, I'll try again with a related question:
How does the page save the state if the user or the user's network is blocking JavaScript as a security measure?
Why did they ever even change the backspace key to take you back a page?!? It was never on by default in the 90's, and I have no idea who first started the dumb idea, but they should probably be shot. That's my opinion.
this is incredibly frustrating. i always use the backspace key to go back and their reasoning is nonsensical. should be a browser setting at the very least. i don't want to have to install more software to regain basic functionality that i have been using for over 20 years.
What about adding an Undo or Forward feature which would probable be a better option.
I think it's sad that they removed this feature. For a while now I was wondering what was wrong with my keyboard because the backspace button wouldn't work to go back to the previous page in Chrome. Why would they remove a feature that has been there for ages? And for such a low percentage of people who misuse the backspace button by accident? Of course the latter has happened to me before, but it rarely does and I *always* use this button to navigate to the previous page. They should at least give us the option to use it if we want to.
opera had back and forward buttons, which just switch the whole site including state, instead of reloading the previous/next page.
So, wait. Let me get this straight. People are typing into a form, hit back space, thinking it will delete a character and instead it goes to the previous page and you loose everything you typed into the form? How about cacheing that text in the form the you go back a page instead of reassigning the meaning of backspace in browsers? And while we're at it, how about you fix Chrome so that when I hit tab in a gmail compose window I get a tab instead of jumping to the send button. I've sent a whole bunch of annoying empty emails because of this.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you,!
That feature drives me nuts!
I've been waiting for years for this. Anyone who has ever sat with a crying child, or adult really, who just lost something important to them because they hit the backspace and got yanked to a previous page appreciates just what a horrible, horrible UX decision this was. I cannot think of any other UX I've seen that LITERALLY makes people cry. It's about time!