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Chrome removes Backspace to go back

bugs.chromium.org

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Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#121

Post by brudgers »

goda90 wrote: post #106
brudgers wrote: post #103

Having a friend who often operates their keyboard by the old stick between their teeth method, I'd like to see an analysis demonstrating that the breaking change improves accessibility. Particularly since the alternative posed in the thread is the chorded alt-left.

I imagine this friend could benefit from a keyboard with extra programmable buttons. Of course you can't expect that for all accessibility needs.

I've known Tim for almost twenty years. He's been on the web as long as I've known him...and given he was making money as a freelance CAD jockey when we met, I suspect longer than that. We'd been in school together a couple of years [me continuously, Tim off and on as being a quad comes with a raft of issues beyond asshat developers breaking the web] when we were both working in the computer lab of the college of architecture. Needless to say, the lab wasn't uniformly equipped with special keyboards nor all the machines loaded with custom adaptive software. Interface standardization and a resourcefulness I am utterly in awe of, allowed him to just do what needed doing.

This is breaking a standard interface. One group of people upon whom it most likely places a burden are those who are likely to have other shit to deal with already. Google ain't mailing out special keyboards to everyone who might need them. I don't imagine you're stepping up to fill that need either.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#122

Post by Mithaldu »

So they applied the wrong fix, to a problem that had been solved a decade ago.

The problem: Moving away from a form can result in data loss.

Their solution: Make it harder to move away?

The actual solution implemented more than a decade ago: Cache history completely and make it easy to move forward and backward in a tab's history while maintaining form contents.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#123

Post by bcg1 »

Jedd wrote: post #25

Chrome / Chromium have a habit of making these arbitrary changes that seriously annoy some (arguably small) percentage of their users, while claiming that it makes it simpler / better for everyone else, while explaining impatiently why it's infeasible to make the now missing feature a configuration option. Evidently the kinds of people that can't be bothered going into the Advanced Configuration Settings page would b…

obligatory xkcd:

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#124

Post by andrepd »

wildmusings wrote: post #39
Jedd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we're all really happy that no chrom* devs contribute to the vim project.

Haha. I'm an avid vim user and I don't get backspace. The normal key to move back by character is in the home-row. Why would I use backspace instead? Am I missing something?

You can use it without leaving insert mode.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#125

Post by freehunter »

nkozyra wrote: post #56
Jedd wrote: post #25

Chrome / Chromium have a habit of making these arbitrary changes that seriously annoy some (arguably small) percentage of their users, while claiming that it makes it simpler / better for everyone else, while explaining impatiently why it's infeasible to make the now missing feature a configuration option. Evidently the kinds of people that can't be bothered going into the Advanced Configuration Settings page would b…

> No idea what the defaults are for OSX, and, really, it doesn't matter - these features should be sensitive to extant defaults on whatever desktop environment the browser finds itself running on. I think there's an argument to be made in either direction. I use Chrome (and other apps like Sublime) on three different platforms and would much prefer to have commonality on the application level. Since it's a big part o…

It really should be an option. Like how Sublime lets you pick between DOS and Unix style line breaks. Because that's how you handle cross platform discrepancies.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#126

Post by Kristine1975 »

cptskippy wrote: post #46
Jedd wrote: post #25

Chrome / Chromium have a habit of making these arbitrary changes that seriously annoy some (arguably small) percentage of their users, while claiming that it makes it simpler / better for everyone else, while explaining impatiently why it's infeasible to make the now missing feature a configuration option. Evidently the kinds of people that can't be bothered going into the Advanced Configuration Settings page would b…

I'm primarily on Windows and that first feature annoys the heck out of me. I would rather scrolling stop or continue, but the snap-back when the mouse leaves a zone is irritating. I think the second is more of an optimization because when you click on the address bar you're most likely either copying or overwriting the URL. It's much less common to modify it. If you want a supremely annoying address bar, you should c…

> I would rather scrolling stop or continue, but the snap-back when the mouse leaves a zone is irritating.

I liked it (back when it existed on Mac OS X): By moving the mouse horizontally to the vertical scroll bar I could instantly return to where I started scrolling. Use case: Read something (web page, source code...), scroll around to look for related information, then return back to the exact position I was before.

> Each component of the URI is a drop down menu item and only by clicking on whitespace to the far right can you get to the actual URI.

And you also have the confusing "copy address" / "copy address as text" context menu.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#127

Post by croon »

Nr7 wrote: post #85
cptskippy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm primarily on Windows and that first feature annoys the heck out of me. I would rather scrolling stop or continue, but the snap-back when the mouse leaves a zone is irritating. I think the second is more of an optimization because when you click on the address bar you're most likely either copying or overwriting the URL. It's much less common to modify it. If you want a supremely annoying address bar, you should c…

The file explorer address bar was one of the best features that were introduced in Vista IMO. If you're in folder "C:\foo\bar\baz\boz\" and want to go to "C:\foo\" it's just one mouse click. Or if you want to go to "C:\foo\bor" that's just two mouse clicks. Much faster than clicking "back" or "up" multiple times.

Well, to be fair if you have the much older tree view enabled on the left side of the explorer, it's only one click to go to C:\foo\bor.

I agree with parent, the adress bar should be the adress bar. Also better for sans-mouse-use. Just F6 and end, ctrl+shift+left arrow until you get to before "bar" and then backspace, enter.

Sure, it's more input but it's still way faster than reaching for your mouse.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#128

Post by scurvy »

coldpie wrote: post #73
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #6

One of the contributors states: "Building an extension for this should be very simple." Why on earth isn't there just a generic keyboard-shortcut preference where I can control every possible browser action and its associated keyboard shortcut? In fact, why isn't this available at an OS level? Surely it would remove a lot of unnecessary duplicate code.

Firefox still has Ctrl-Q to close the current window, which is right next to Ctrl-W to close the current tab on a English keyboard. This is the first extension I install: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/disable-ctrl-... Dumb.

In OS X, I always map cmd-q to the system-wide accessibility feature for zoom in. Then change the zoom factor to 0x. It effectively neuters cmd-q.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#129

Post by jordache »

on the topic of annoying details that browser makers overlooks.

In safari, when opening a new tab, the focus is not on the address bar. I have to always to Cmd+L before start typing. The address bar focus works when you don't have a homepage defined (so a blank page), but who doesn't configure a default home page? arrghh

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#130

Post by Kristine1975 »

bobbyi_settv wrote: post #88
cptskippy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you use it? I understand how it works but I see no advantage to it over the tree view. I always enable the "expand to location" option so that my tree view is exactly where I am. To me that address bar abomination is just an obfuscation of otherwise useful information with large clickable regions of functionality I don't want.

I think you are in the minority here. For most people, navigating from one folder to another is not "functionality I don't want" in a desktop folder browser, but is the main thing you want to do. I'd much rather have UI that lets me navigate efficiently than that makes it efficient to copy-and-paste arbitrary substrings within a folder path. I do the former almost every time I use the file browser and the latter basi…

>My main computer is a Mac and I very much wish its "Finder" had navigation tools as nice as the "breadcrumb bar" you are describing in Windows.

It's not completely the same as on Windows, but:

- Shift-Apple-G lets you enter a directory path to open (including bash-like completion with tab).

- Option-Apple-P shows/hides the "path bar" at the lower edge of a window where the hierarchy of the current folder is displayed (including a spartan context menu).

On Windows I mainly use the explorer address bar to go to those hidden folders like ProgramData.

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