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Chrome removes Backspace to go back

bugs.chromium.org

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Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#161

Post by StyloBill »

AlexC04 wrote: post #159

> "We're doing this via a flag so that we can control this behavior should there be sufficient outcry." I love that they decided to do this. I think the justification for taking it away is really good. I also think that the decision to disable via "flag" shows some prescience with respect to how the public reacts to things. Great move and a template for "sound product development".

Yeah, except that they're not doing it this way.

>We ended up not having a flag for this. Even if we had it, it would only have been in place for a single release.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#163

Post by qb45 »

kijin wrote: post #150
qb45 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Firefox, backspace has defaulted to "scroll up" for years now and yes, browser.backspace_action in about:config controls this.

My Firefox has browser.backspace_action set to the default value (zero), and it goes back to the previous page when I press the backspace key. It's been less than 36 hours since I lost several hundred words of work because of this, so I'm pretty sure the default behavior is "go back" as of the latest stable version (46.0.1).

Maybe they switched it back at some time. I remember changing it from 1 or 2 to 0 on few installations.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#164

Post by jdhzzz »

croon wrote: post #127
Nr7 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(old guy here) I'll never understand why the left-pane tree view isn't the default. Not having it follow the current directory makes it a waste of screen real estate.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#165

Post by wildmusings »

andrepd wrote: post #124
wildmusings wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Huh? In insert mode, the backspace does what it does in all editors. We're referring to the behavior in normal mode, where backspace is equivalent (I think?) to 'h', or left arrow in most editors.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#166

Post by fixermark »

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…

It's not free to add a configuration of this class to the advanced configurations; items in that list must be tested, maintained in future versions, etc.

The kind of people who are willing to go to the Advanced Configuration Settings page are also willing to tweak their keyboard mappings to map any modifier key they want to to the "go back in history" accelerator for Chrome.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#167

Post by fixermark »

stephenr wrote: post #28
anotheryou wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The change in context is not clear enough for the average user (Text Field or History) and the consequences are really bad (loss of input text).

Does Chrome not prompt you about losing un-submitted changes to a form when triggering a navigation event?

(1) No, it does not.

(2) The concept of a "form" is less and less clear in the realm of web apps.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#168

Post by ChrisArgyle »

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.

> 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?

It turns out this extension does exist. I just used it to assign "shift+backspace" to "Go Back" and it worked.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortkeys-custom-k...

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#169

Post by kijin »

qb45 wrote: post #163
kijin wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Firefox has browser.backspace_action set to the default value (zero), and it goes back to the previous page when I press the backspace key. It's been less than 36 hours since I lost several hundred words of work because of this, so I'm pretty sure the default behavior is "go back" as of the latest stable version (46.0.1).

Maybe they switched it back at some time. I remember changing it from 1 or 2 to 0 on few installations.

It seems like 0 (go back) has always been the default on Windows builds. On Linux it used to be 1 (scroll up) but they changed it to 2 (do nothing) in 2006.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action

I made a half-assed attempt to migrate my Windows Firefox profile to Linux a while ago, which probably explains why I'm seeing the Windows behavior on both platforms :(

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#170

Post by fixermark »

RussianCow wrote: post #145
johns wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On OS X, go to the Chrome menu, select "Warn Before Quitting". This makes it so you have to hold Cmd-Q to exit. No more accidental closing.

This should really be a global setting in OS X. I find myself accidentally hitting Cmd+Q all the time, not just for the web browser.

For quite a few users, OSX's entire concept of "quit the currently-active application" is downright archaic.
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