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Chrome removes Backspace to go back

bugs.chromium.org

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Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#561

Post by Dayshine »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #416
DonHopkins wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stellaris is magnificent! It's incredibly deep and complex, but it has a great user interface, and they've been totally thorough about putting helpful color coded pop-up tooltips everywhere there's something interesting to point at, giving you information about every icon and button, revealing keyboard shortcuts, and telling you one or more tasks that you need to do to first to enable disabled buttons. I really hate…

Jeez if stellaris is considered deep what'd be your opinion on distant world: universe? Mind you I'm enjoying it but many parts fall extremely flat. Like corvette balance and topped war scores.

It's the first version of a Paradox game, give it a few expansions.

EU4 has taken close to a decade to get where it is.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#562

Post by fader »

qb45 wrote: post #139
dandare wrote: post #38

"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. The latter are often cases where the user loses data. Years of user complaints have been enough that we think it's the right choice to change this given the degree of pain users feel by losing their data and because every platform has another keyboard combination that nav…

Your usability study methodologies are worthless if they conclude that "backspace back" is worthless. It's the first thing I'm always enabling on every new Firefox installation since they disabled it by default several years ago. And with sufficiently large user base, even 0.04% means "lots of people being pissed off now".

It's a tradeoff. There are already keyboard shortcuts for 'previous page' and there will be extension support to re-add 'backspace as previous page', it just won't be on by default.

If you were a drugstore and had a drug that was functionally identical to aspirin but caused day-long projectile vomiting in 99.96% of people who took it, would you think it was a great idea to hide the aspirin in the back and give the drug that is almost guaranteed to cause harm to someone as the default?

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#563

Post by mstade »

chc wrote: post #338
__david__ wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

While that would work, this seems like the path to "Firefox is too heavy and uses lots of memory."

I don't know how Safari does it, but it works, is incredibly fast, and eats much less memory than Chrome. (My browsing habits suggest Safari is about 30-40% cheaper in terms of memory, but that's anecdata so truck loads of salt required.)

In any event, there are way too many replies to keep count of in this thread, but all I can say is that however Safari does it – it just works(tm). Accidental backspace has literally never been an issue for me since they implemented this. There are convincing arguments why backspace as a short cut is a bad idea to begin with, but old habits die hard, and I for one am very happy that Safari makes this work.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#564

Post by mstade »

eslaught wrote: post #260
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…

> > The correct solution: Cache tab history completely [...] This is not a solution for the majority of users. The problem with keyboard shortcuts is that most users won't know what happened. All they'll know is that suddenly they're not on the same page any more, and then won't realize they've navigated backwards. Therefore they won't think to navigate forwards again, and they won't get back to their form data, even…

> This is not a solution for the majority of users. The problem with keyboard shortcuts is that most users won't know what happened. All they'll know is that suddenly they're not on the same page any more, and then won't realize they've navigated backwards. Therefore they won't think to navigate forwards again, and they won't get back to their form data, even if it is cached.

If this is true, it's a very convincing argument – I'd buy it for a dollar. In any event, my personal preference is to keep this backspace behavior, and my browser of choice (Safari) implements this caching perfectly.

At this point, not only am I ok with the accidental back navigation, but also I actively rely on things working this way. For instance, here on HN I routinely hit back and forward to see what people wrote, and Safari keeps my drafts perfectly well.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#565

Post by eloisant »

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…

When you have a product, you have 2 solutions:

- Make changes that annoy some users

- For fear of annoying anyone, keep adding without ever removing, increase the number of settings, in other words bloat. Until a new, "lighter" alternative products comes and everyone moves out from your bloated product

So yes, by removing features that they realized weren't good one, they're keeping the product simple.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#566

Post by JdeBP »

perezdev wrote: post #374
vidarh wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making assumptions that are invalid for a whole lot of keyboard layouts.

Must be why I said standard.

No, that would be because you didn't know what standard keyboard layouts are.

* CAN/CSA Z243.200-92 is a standard keyboard layout. One Alt modifier, one level 3 shift: https://www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/images/ti/clavier.gif

* DIN 2137-1:2012-06 T3 is a standard keyboard layout. One Alt modifier, one level 3 shift: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:German-T2-Keyboard-Proto...

* ABNT NBR 10346 2 is a standard keyboard layout. One Alt modifier, one level 3 shift: http://www.windowsintegral.com/wp-content/uploads/Teclado_AB...

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#567

Post by 746F7475 »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #537
746F7475 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So make them an option and stop taking the Chrome route of stripping out everything that more advanced users use regularly. Did you really use backspace and "move back" on regular basis? Why? You most likely aren't browsing the web with just your keyboard, so unless you are a leftie it requires you to either move your hand back to keyboard or move your hand across the whole keyboard and why would you do either of t…

Where's the "thumb button" on an Apple Mighty Mouse?

Well, maybe it's time to stop using inferior shit products and buy a proper mouse. Any $20 mouse from your local department store has at least one button to press with your thumb.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#568

Post by JdeBP »

shurcooL wrote: post #452
EpicEng wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Is there any other dedicated button

If you go for a 122-key or 127-key keyboard like these:

* http://casasbahia.com.br/Informatica/AcessoriosePerifericos/...

* http://buscapro.com.br/Teclado-Multimidia-Usb-Abnt2-Portugue...

... then the dedicated buttons are the "forward" and "back" keys on the top row.

In 554 comments discussing "power users" and "people who use keyboards for absolutely everything" I think this to be the first mention of the forward and back keys on "multimedia"/"internet" keyboards. Do "power users" not lust after keyboards with lots of keys any more? (-:

Here's one with a telephone, as well as "forward" and "back" keys for WWW browsing:

* http://www.compulogic.com.ar/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=...

Historical aside: The "Space Cadet" keyboard actually had fewer keys than these.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#569

Post by anotheryou »

Oduig wrote: post #503
anotheryou wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With multiple monitors scroll bars are broken anyway. I use drag to scroll assigned to my right mouse button (works great in FF, so so in Chrome): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grab-and-drag... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scrollbar-anywhere... I miss this so much outside my browser...

There are programs like DisplayFusion which take care of scrolling in non-focused windows. I highly recommend it, although it is paid after a while. There must be other tools out there that can do it!

jup, i used http://www.premeforwindows.com/ for a while. But i mean the drag anywhere to scroll.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#570

Post by nitrogen »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #483
marcosdumay wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> although the "Backspace" keystroke works Does not work for me, FF 38. This feature used to throw me out of forms all the time, there has been a couple of years that it stopped. Now the only FF keystroke that annoys me is the CTRL-q for closing the window, that conveniently is just by the side of CTRL-w for closing the tab, and does not save the window state.

>does not save the window state. Do any of these options work to get your state back after accidentally closing the browser?(1) Is control-w significantly different than pressing the x on the Window? Just curious. (1) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-restore-my-tab... (Might not work if you delete history on close)

Closing a window can sometimes be undone by pressing Ctrl-Shift-N, even after a browser restart.
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