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Chrome removes Backspace to go back

bugs.chromium.org

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Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#281

Post by cpeterso »

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.

Here is an old Firefox bug requesting this feature. There is a browser.showQuitWarning pref, but it doesn't seem to work for me.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=565567

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#282

Post by hussong »

bhauer wrote: post #262
itslennysfault wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

⌘←→ too... Not sure why there need to be so many back button shortcuts. Glad they removed backspace.

Yes, and for what it's worth, I feel Space to page down is another oddball one. I guess it's for the supremely lazy who don't want to have to move their finger to the Page-Down key.

Call me supremely lazy, but I use the spacebar all the time (Thinkpad), since my thumb already rests on it and it's so big that I can't miss it. I even prefer it over scrolling.

Page-Down means I have to almost move my hand away from the keyboard (middle finger to the top right corner, can't hit it with other fingers because display) -- that feels like grabbing for the mouse...

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#283

Post by hussong »

RGamma wrote: post #213
floatboth wrote: post #186

Good. I always set browser.backspace_action to do nothing in Firefox, because this is SO infuriating. You think you have a text field focused but you actually don't (e.g. accidental mouse click removed the focus), you press Backspace and BOOM! suddenly you're on the previous page. Ctrl/Cmd+[ and ] is the real shortcut!

I'm quite the opposite opinion and use Backspace to go back extensively, because it means that I can browse the web with one hand on my laptop with trackpoint. If you're accidently clicking on things, maybe learn to use a mouse better. P.S.: Oh and if it's a crappy touchpad making unwanted inputs, then I share your concern (and probably a good time to look at other laptop keyboards; turning off the touchpad on this L…

> If you're accidently clicking on things, maybe learn to use a mouse better.

Not everyone uses a mouse all the time.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#284

Post by duskwuff »

bhauer wrote: post #262
itslennysfault wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

⌘←→ too... Not sure why there need to be so many back button shortcuts. Glad they removed backspace.

Yes, and for what it's worth, I feel Space to page down is another oddball one. I guess it's for the supremely lazy who don't want to have to move their finger to the Page-Down key.

The space bar is large and easy to reach. It's also present on some keyboards that don't have a discrete Page Down key (e.g, Apple laptops).

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#285

Post by djwbrown »

Cumulative time wasted using 'Command+[': none. Cumulative time wasted due to overloading of the backspace key: hours.

Relying on current context to determine the behavior of backspace was a terrible idea from the start. To hell with your muscle memory. Re-learn a shortcut that makes sense, and which will save you time one day, rather than insisting with hacker-machismo that you've never lost data in a form.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#286

Post by pbiggar »

Well done Chrome. While it's the way that I go back and I now need to change my habits, this is the kind of hard decision that you need to make to have a really great product. They weighed the upsides and downsides, and pissed off a small subset of people (esp on HN who are likely to be the backspace-as-back users) to make a better experience. Bravo!

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#287

Post by nikanj »

stephenr wrote: post #207
fixermark wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) No, it does not. (2) The concept of a "form" is less and less clear in the realm of web apps.

Yes, it does. In the context of html in a browser, a form isn't a concept to be debated, it's a well understood element defined in the html standard. If an app chooses to not use html forms and instead uses something like contenteditable to create its own editing environment, then you likely have much bigger issues than the back button.

I can't see how I have issues because a webapp I use wasn't perfectly coded. Remember the majority of browser users are, for a lack of a better word, browsers, not site developers. We can't affect the technology choices of the sites much, as choosing a site by tech purity instead of usefullnes is a losing proposition.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#288

Post by drzaiusapelord »

itslennysfault wrote: post #192
floatboth wrote: post #186

Good. I always set browser.backspace_action to do nothing in Firefox, because this is SO infuriating. You think you have a text field focused but you actually don't (e.g. accidental mouse click removed the focus), you press Backspace and BOOM! suddenly you're on the previous page. Ctrl/Cmd+[ and ] is the real shortcut!

⌘←→ too... Not sure why there need to be so many back button shortcuts. Glad they removed backspace.

Because the guys who made Mosiac had no idea what they were doing because everything was so new. At first there was this idea that you'd constantly be going back and forth between pages, similarly to how people used gopher back then. You'd always have your hands on the arrow keys and you'd fly past various pages to find what you wanted. But, of course, terminals didn't really have scrolling, but GUI windows do, so html pages were just written longer and longer and we got used to scrolling down instead of moving between pages.

Recently, Andreeson said that he never expected the forward and back buttons to last this long. He assumed they were temporary measures until something better came along. Nothing ever did it seems.

Worse, I tried MS's Edge browser and found that the spacebar is now a back button. I am completely baffled by this. I am so used to the space bar as a scroll down, I can't think what misappropriation of ideas and user testing must be going on at MS right now to make this change. Its truly bizarre and really killed my faith in MS finally getting browsers right.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#289

Post by microcolonel »

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…

Thank you. Honestly I can't tell you just how much I've loathed this default behaviour. I wrote a chrome extension to disable it.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#290

Post by hussong »

Fogest wrote: post #228
RGamma wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite the opposite opinion and use Backspace to go back extensively, because it means that I can browse the web with one hand on my laptop with trackpoint. If you're accidently clicking on things, maybe learn to use a mouse better. P.S.: Oh and if it's a crappy touchpad making unwanted inputs, then I share your concern (and probably a good time to look at other laptop keyboards; turning off the touchpad on this L…

How small are your hands if you can't one hand ALT+ Left arrow?

Not everyone is using a desktop keyboard, or a US keyboard layout.

FWIW, on my laptop, ALT+Left would be a full spread of the hand and I have to move my torso to get the hand in position.

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