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Chrome removes Backspace to go back

bugs.chromium.org

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Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#451

Post by danielweber »

rayiner wrote: post #13
gjvc wrote: post #2

This is most annoying. I have used this for the past twenty years and have not lost form data using it. In any event, chrome seems to remember form contents upon navigating back to a form page. Leave my muscle memory alone please.

I lose form data by accidentally using backspace like once a month. Glad to see it go. It's the worst kind of UI modality because it does different things depending on whether you've reached the beginning of the form. I like to mash backspace to clear out a form. Imagine if pressing "CTRL-S" saved if there were edits, but deleted your file if you'd already saved. People who mash "CTRL-S" habitually would be screwed.…

> It's the worst kind of UI modality because it does different things depending on whether you've reached the beginning of the form.

I've never seen backspace act differently once I'd deleted everything. If a form field has focus -- even an empty form field -- backspace doesn't make me lose the page.

(On the other hand, I started this morning hating Chrome for getting rid of the functionality I've used since last century, but I'm now coming to accept it.)

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#452

Post by shurcooL »

EpicEng wrote: post #404
jandrese wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Me too.

Is there any other dedicated button or shortcut that would work better for that purpose for us?

I suspect there is, but I don't know what it would be yet.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#453

Post by azinman2 »

ryanlol wrote: post #429
azinman2 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given lol is in your username I can't tell if you're trolling or serious...

Oh I'm entirely serious. Obviously nobody thinks that nobody else has ever lost data by accidentally pressing backspace, but I think most people can agree that it's simply not a good enough reason to completely remove such an established feature.

If you read the comments on the bug it's lots of people's position that losing data isn't real ("I've never had it happen", "Chrome remembers form data", etc). That's a silly position since it does happen, and this kind of error is the one that generally affects novices the most who are the least capable to deal with it or understand what happened.

If you've ever lost data and especially don't know why/how, then you know that super sucks and shouldn't ever happen period. Removing this prevents data loss, that's a UX win.

It's bizarre that it's happening in 2016, but better late than never. You still have power user alt/cmd-left so the keyboard can navigate, and if you're super duper keyboard person then you can install one of the vim navigation extensions or use an extension that preserves the backspace.

You say established feature, but I bet if you surveyed something like 20% or less would know about this.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#454

Post by jacobolus »

rayiner wrote: post #345
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…

A modal shortcut key whose behavior differs depending on the content of the text-box that has focus is still a braindead UI feature that causes unnecessary surprise. Making the consequences of screwing up less severe doesn't change that. There is no rational defense for overloading a single button with two totally unrelated functions (navigation and text input). It's a design wart that people are defending on inertia…

Keyboard shortcuts are horribly broken, because all of the common keys (tab, space, return, escape, etc.) and various other standard shortcuts have been overloaded with abandon over the years.

In a better world, there would be much clearer defined intermediate interfaces between keyboard hardware, operating system, and final software (e.g. the native app, system shortcut, or browser javascript) performing the action for the user. Every interface would be clean and straight-forward, and easy for the user to adapt to her preferences.

In the world we live in, there are a confusing mishmash of 6–7 intermediate layers, which differ on each operating system and keyboard, some of which can be partially adapted by the user, but many of which can’t. These layers are poorly defined, not understood by users, and reach into each-other with various ugly hacks, and they often co-opt each-other’s keyboard shortcuts in arbitrary and confusing ways.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#455

Post by stouset »

meatcider wrote: post #423
stouset wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a cost to this too, in terms of development effort. Yeah, one option isn't a big deal, but multiply this by the gajillion times that developers have to make a choice between something 99% of their users want. Backspace-as-back-button is not an "advanced feature". It's a hotkey that essentially no other software uses for the same behavior and one which conflicts crappily with the fundamental behavior of that k…

> It's a hotkey that essentially no other software uses for the same behavior Except for Windows Explorer, but who uses that, eh? Your level of empathy is immaterial to the conversation, but thanks for sharing.

Backspace on Windows Explorer goes up one directory, not back in your history.

In a not-at-all shocking turn of events, it turns out Alt-Left and Alt-Right are in fact the hotkeys for navigating backward and forward through history, so Chrome aligns perfectly with Windows Explorer in this regard.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#456

Post by NeutronBoy »

stevetrewick wrote: post #277
Kadin wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Like everything in IT security, it's about your use case, threat matrix, and risk assessment.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#457

Post by mcrmonkey »

ffs this is stupid. backspace has always been "back" in browsers and it really vexes me when some versions of firefox on some linux distro's do this. two hands have to be used to action this because the right alt key is either not mapped ( on some os'es ) or is alt-gr. backspace works well when moving quickly too - one finger from home row and bam.

Rather then this be the fix they should probably look at the bug thats causing the user to go back when the form element is focused.

Whats next ? take away space bar for moving through the page ?

A about:config thing needs to be present for this to allow the user to switch between what they want. Sure extentions are possible to fix this too but i dont really want a 3rd party extention to re-enable whats a tried and tested keyboard shortcut. Additionally what happens if that dev's account gets hacked and the extention modded for malace ? Or if the dev pulls the thing in a way similar to the node.js module issue a month or so ago.

This part is worrying though:

We have UseCounters showing that 0.04% of page views navigate back via the backspace button and 0.005% of page views are after a form interaction.

Where is that data being gathered from and how?

Additionally what is classed as a form interaction ?

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#458

Post by ultramancool »

recursive wrote: post #448
ultramancool wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I understand your argument, but this is what addons are for. Users who want it can install an addon for it. Chrome on the other hand has such weak addon APIs that they are often unable to achieve what's needed. Firefox seems to be moving in the same direction unfortunately. I think it's worth it for those developers to at least maintain full addon APIs, even though there's a trade-off here it greatly increases…

Is it not actually possible to implement this with an addon? It seems possible with a small script embedded in each page. If an addon can't do this, what could it possibly actually do?

In this case yes it should be, but I was getting at a larger problem - try to do this with something like Tree Style Tabs, DownThemAll, etc.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#459

Post by brandon »

__david__ wrote: post #311
nkoren wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web no longer consists of just static web pages and form data. I build complex web applications, which are stateful in many ways that don't involve forms (and involve things like websocket connections, etc). There's no way that the browser could possibly recreate that state by going forward. So web apps of any complexity must necessarily intercept the delete key and break its functionality. And to the extent that…

> There's no way that the browser could possibly recreate that state by going forward. Of course there is—just don't delete anything immediately. All your state stays there like it's in its own (hidden) tab and gets lazily garbage collected "some time" later. If the user navigates back, there's nothing to rebuild as everything is still sitting there intact.

What do you do about WebSocket connections or hanging GETs? Do you lie to the page about whether its still being rendered visibly? Etc etc.

This all seems terribly expensive relative to removing a hotkey used by fewer than 1% of users.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#460

Post by Daneel_ »

mrweasel wrote: post #34
gjvc wrote: post #2

This is most annoying. I have used this for the past twenty years and have not lost form data using it. In any event, chrome seems to remember form contents upon navigating back to a form page. Leave my muscle memory alone please.

I actually find Google search annoying to use because the search box hijacks backspace. I'll search for something, decide to go back, and now I'm deleting my search term instead. And the fact that Google searches based on what's in my search box (without having to hit enter) I've actually "lost" search results that way.

Luckily, there's an extension which fixes this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reclaim-backspace-...

I'm an avid backspace-as-back user, so I went searching for a solution as soon as they introduced focus-stealing.

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