Chrome removes Backspace to go back • Hacker News Board

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#271

Post by voiceofreason43 » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:30 PM UTC

mryingster wrote: post #226

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…

At one point I forked Chromium over the click-selects-all in the URL bar. In OS X, this was the only application that behaved that way (until Apple recently followed suit with Safari...). Now I just use FireFox because they give me the option to override the default. I edit URLs far more often than typing in new ones. If I am going to a new URL, I generally type command-l or open a new tab...

The point of highlighting the URL with a single click isn't just to replace it with something else, but to copy it fast, and all kinds of users, including true power users, copy URLs much more often than edit them.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#272

Post by Kadin » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #191

fixermark wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you no longer quit applications in [your operating system]? What's the alternative?

Install enough RAM to run every application on your system, simultaneously, without swapping...? I guess there's that.

I am surprised Apple hasn't encouraged users to do that, come to think of it.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#273

Post by voiceofreason43 » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

optforfon wrote: post #120

kuschku wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Firefox has about:config, and everything can be changed there.

woah.. didn't know about that. It's a monster list of exposed internal variables? Talk about inaccessible...

Any user who knows enough to know what he is doing on that page already knows about it.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#274

Post by nikanj » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

I can't count the number of times I've noticed a typo in a form, hit shift-tab one time too many or few, hit backspace and ended up losing all of the info I filled in. The forward button mostly just leads to "resubmit form data?", instead of bringing me back.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#275

Post by rietta » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

NOOO! That's how I go back! And use the space bar to scroll up and down!

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#276

Post by iopq » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

drostie wrote: post #254

mstade wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are better solutions. Comment #35 in that thread actually provides one: > The problem: Moving away from a form can result in data loss. > Your solution: Make it harder to move away. > The correct solution: Cache tab history completely and make it easy to move forward and backward in a tab's history by reusing cache and maintaining form contents. (Source: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id…

This can be a little dicey when AJAX was used to render the form that you're thinking about submitting; for a browser to Do It Right they may need to cache complicated stuff like (a) the entire DOM and (b) the entire state of the JS interpreter at the moment navigation began away from the page. Even if we only do this on backwards navigation and immediately trash it when we navigate forwards to a new location, it sti…

when you get the form back up, the browser should fill it because it should remember the form state from earlier

alternatively, just don't browse away when you have something filled in a form - just ask the user if they meant to do that

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#277

Post by stevetrewick » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

Kadin wrote: post #265

stevetrewick wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're emailing users' passwords you've got bigger problems than a bit of trailing white space.

Lots of systems email users an initial password which must be changed at first login. It's not the world's most elegant solution, but it's also not terrible and basically does an implicit email verification. I'm not sure that it's any worse than sending a URL with an embedded token that takes the user to a password-change page.

>but it's also not terrible

It's terrible. Really.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7943365

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#278

Post by handelaar » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

jemfinch wrote: post #111

thiht wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alt+Left requires moving both hands, Backspace is only one finger away If only Alt-Gr+Left or Right Ctrl+Left worked...

Alt+Left requires two fingers, but not two hands. You're aware of the alt to the right of the space bar, yes?

On American keyboards.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#279

Post by stevefeinstein » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

mstade wrote: post #243

klodolph wrote: post #239

I'm going to take a somewhat contrarian view and say, "Thank you, Chrome developers." It's always easy to tell apart the people who know shortcuts from the people who don't, if you watch them use their computers. Someone with a few shortcuts on tap will zoom around their monitors, switching between mouse and keyboard only when necessary. But there are a few shortcuts and user interface quirks that are too outdated an…

But there are better solutions. Comment #35 in that thread actually provides one: > The problem: Moving away from a form can result in data loss. > Your solution: Make it harder to move away. > The correct solution: Cache tab history completely and make it easy to move forward and backward in a tab's history by reusing cache and maintaining form contents. (Source: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id…

This is the correct answer. However even this isn't enough. I would also remove backspace from going back a page. It should never have been a thing. Having a key that performs a function modally when the context isn't very clear, is just ripe for confusion. And confusing it has been as the fact that this issue was raised.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#280

Post by dilap » Thu, May 19, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

mstade wrote: post #243

klodolph wrote: post #239

I'm going to take a somewhat contrarian view and say, "Thank you, Chrome developers." It's always easy to tell apart the people who know shortcuts from the people who don't, if you watch them use their computers. Someone with a few shortcuts on tap will zoom around their monitors, switching between mouse and keyboard only when necessary. But there are a few shortcuts and user interface quirks that are too outdated an…

But there are better solutions. Comment #35 in that thread actually provides one: > The problem: Moving away from a form can result in data loss. > Your solution: Make it harder to move away. > The correct solution: Cache tab history completely and make it easy to move forward and backward in a tab's history by reusing cache and maintaining form contents. (Source: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id…

leaving a page is still traumatic, and caching is never perfect (passwords &c). honestly this was always an insane shortcut.