Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chrome removes Backspace to go back

bugs.chromium.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 594 posts

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#401

Post by emodendroket »

fixermark wrote: post #400
emodendroket wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you define an alternate button that acts like ctrl? It's the same as how in Windows remote desktop you have to use ctrl-alt-end instead of ctrl-alt-del because the software can't override the handling of that keypress

Probably for similar reasons to the ones people have expressed in this thread about not wanting to have to re-learn backspace. ;) Perfectly doable; doesn't solve the problem of not mapping to what one is accustom to. I'm an emacs user. If Ctrl-c does something different from starting a chord, I'm gonna have a bad time.

I switched from using a Mac keyboard to using a Windows one when I was still a heavy emacs user; I think you'll get adjusted much faster than you think.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#402

Post by bratch »

shabble wrote: post #175
ygra wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, Esc used to stop GIFs on a web page. Doesn't seem to do that (anymore?) in Chrome. (Oh, or Firefox, or Edge. IE is the only browser that still does that.)

IIRC there was some tedious justification for firefox about this being 'more correct' since escape would close websocket connections and pause javascripts and other fancy modern cruft sites rely on. There's an extension (SuperStop I believe?) that partly restores it if you shift-esc, but recently I've found that invasive keybindings in pages (Slack, I think?) can intercept this and stop it working. I'd really like a…

BetterStop [1] restores the old behaviour well.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/betterstop/

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#403

Post by fixermark »

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?

Neither Windows nor Android have a (generally-used) concept of quitting an entire application at the user interface level. You can force-quit a process, but that's a rarely-used feature intended primarily for debugging purposes (and accessible through a side-channel; Process Explorer for Windows, app settings for Android). Some applications implement such a concept, but they're generally "single-window" apps, where closing their sole view is equivalent to closing the entire app (games usually fit this category).

Nowadays, you can generally trust your OS to page an app in and out and devote no resources to it if the resources aren't needed. Quitting an app is for misbehaving apps, which isn't assumed to be the common case.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#404

Post by EpicEng »

jandrese wrote: post #387
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…

I agree with you. The only thing backspace to go back has ever done is make me accidentally navigate away from pages where I am entering data. It's just not ergonomic for my typical use. Alt-left arrow is harder to type, but it's also harder to mistype. Plus, it's a web browser, my hand is on the mouse when I'm navigating anyway.

That's nice for you. I use backspace exclusively to go back, and I use it very, very often. I have never once done so accidentally.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#405

Post by fixermark »

Kadin wrote: post #272
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's the thing... from an architecture level, a modern Mac can already handle this. The fact that an app can have zero windows open (or minimized) but can be brought to foreground to interact with an app-level menubar attached to no window can be thought of as a bit of an anti-feature, depending one one's point of view.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#406

Post by bratch »

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.

You can also fix this with "browser.showQuitWarning = true" in about:config. It still instantly quits with only one tab open, but so would Ctrl-W.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#407

Post by pests »

cptskippy wrote: post #72
bryanlarsen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second is really annoying on Linux because selecting something in X clears the previous selection.

Yeah I can see how that would be annoying. I'm so rarely in X that I don't always appreciate some of the features it offers. Scrolling the window under the cursor though is one I always hope will find it's way into Windows.

Windows 10 actually has that on by default now, called "Scroll Inactive Windows."

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#408

Post by fixermark »

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.

If I have a partially filled-out form that is really the query box for a search backend, and I hit back, why at the browser level should my flow be interrupted? That content was ephemeral.

It's an application-level question, not a system question. Can only be answered with semantic knowledge of the importance of the user input.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#409

Post by chc »

panglott wrote: post #396
chc wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly, these commands are in the menus for the Mac version (they're the second and third commands in the History menu), but the versions for Windows and Linux don't seem to have them.

I was wondering what the Mac versions did, since there's no Backspace. "Press Delete to go back"?

The key is labeled as delete, but it's functionally the same as backspace and it does indeed make you go back in browsers.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#410

Post by EpicEng »

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.

Or those on laptops who don't have those keys. Or those who keep one hand on the mouse and the left on, you know, the left side of the keyboard.
Post reply on HN