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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.
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?
For all the pain this has called me, I'm glad our national nightmare is finally over!
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.
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.
I would have gotten first post but I hit the backspace
I am a figment of my own imagination.
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.
This one actually seems like a good design decision.
On pc the backspace and delete buttons both exist and they work exactly as they should. Darned if I care what apple does.
On chrome I also see back, forward and refresh/stop just fine.
However the problem with backspace going back is that if you are typing in a textarea and you hit backspace it deletes your text (which is what you want). However if you tab to another control that is not text editable and you hit backspace you have now gone back a page and lost what you where entering. It violates all kinds of UI principles.
Backspace to go back is just a bad UI and fixing it should definitely be done. There is no dumbing down involved.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
App as a shorthand for application has been in use for over 30 years.
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!
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.
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.
Speaking of which, I never cared for the way the tab key is overloaded and prevents you from typing an actual tab into the text field. Same with the Enter key that sometimes submits the form (or goes to the next line in Excel) so you have to use Ctrl-Enter to enter an actual enter. We need new buttons for Next/Previous Field, and Submit.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
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?
For example, RISC OS has an !Apps directory since the 90s.
Perl Programmer for hire
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.
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.
Relevant bug
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."
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'm not entirely sure I'm reading your message correctly, but on an Apple keyboard:
Fn+Up = Page Up
Fn+Down = Page Down
Fn+Backspace (labeled as "delete") = Del
Fn+Left arrow = Home
Fn+Right arrow = End
Fn+Enter = Return (is it vice versa??)
Fn+Esc = Break
And just some other useful:
Option+Up = cursor to beginning of line, or if at beginning of line, up one line
Option+Down = cursor to end of line, or if at end of line, down one line
Option+Left arrow = move cursor left one word
Option+Right arrow = move cursor right one word
If you're new to Mac OS, shortcut keys and modifier keys are really big. Try dragging with various modifier keys, clicking on the desktop with various modifier keys (e.g. Option+Click on desktop hides the current active program windows, same as Cmd+H), check out Application and system menus while holding down Option, etc.