Chrome removes Backspace to go back • Hacker News Board

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#81

Post by lstamour » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:26 PM UTC

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.

Ah, yes. On OS X, Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+W (well, their CMD equivalents) are system-wide and it drives me crazy if I hit Ctrl+Q by accident, or that devs prompt to quit because of how easy it is to accidentally press it instead of W. I'm so glad that tabs and state reload in pretty much every app I use these days...

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#82

Post by iSnow » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

ruipgil wrote: post #10

I might be the minority here, but I think that using the backspace to go back is counter intuitive. In my mind backspace is to delete something, and I always worry about that.

Backspace to navigate is bloody hell. I don't know how much work I have lost because all I wanted was to remove a couple of characters. ALT-left arrow!

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#83

Post by snowfield » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

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.

"Do you want to install "backspace for chrome?" This extension can;

See all your data on all websites

cant wait

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#84

Post by Eridrus » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #20

This is going to sound hyperbolic, I'm sure, but backspace-as-back is enormously important to my browsing experience. When I recently installed Ubuntu I had a small moment of panic when I realized that hitting backspace in Firefox performed some Ubuntu-specific thing rather than navigating backwards (as it does in Windows), but fortunately there's an about:config pref to re-enable the behavior. Just my two cents.

Why is installing an extension that supports this functionality unacceptable?

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#85

Post by Nr7 » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #46

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…

I'm primarily on Windows and that first feature annoys the heck out of me. I would rather scrolling stop or continue, but the snap-back when the mouse leaves a zone is irritating. I think the second is more of an optimization because when you click on the address bar you're most likely either copying or overwriting the URL. It's much less common to modify it. If you want a supremely annoying address bar, you should c…

The file explorer address bar was one of the best features that were introduced in Vista IMO.

If you're in folder "C:\foo\bar\baz\boz\" and want to go to "C:\foo\" it's just one mouse click. Or if you want to go to "C:\foo\bor" that's just two mouse clicks. Much faster than clicking "back" or "up" multiple times.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#86

Post by cholantesh » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #46

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…

I'm primarily on Windows and that first feature annoys the heck out of me. I would rather scrolling stop or continue, but the snap-back when the mouse leaves a zone is irritating. I think the second is more of an optimization because when you click on the address bar you're most likely either copying or overwriting the URL. It's much less common to modify it. If you want a supremely annoying address bar, you should c…

>If you want a supremely annoying address bar, you should check out Windows File Explorer from Vista/7 onward. Each component of the URI is a drop down menu item and only by clicking on whitespace to the far right can you get to the actual URI.

You can also right click the bar to edit or copy the URI...

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#87

Post by lstamour » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

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.

I would expect the opposite behaviour to be annoying though, I've "lost" searches by hitting backspace and unexpectedly going back when I thought I selected the URL bar and waited to delete what was inside. Try to use alternative shortcuts rather than the overloaded Backspace.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#88

Post by bobbyi_settv » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #63

kuschku wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want a supremely annoying address bar, you should check out Windows File Explorer from Vista/7 onward. Each component of the URI is a drop down menu item and only by clicking on whitespace to the far right can you get to the actual URI. Actually, I’m one of the people who like that so much, I enabled it even in KDE Dolphin. EDIT: Due to submission restrictions, I can’t answer right now – I’ll have to wait ab…

How do you use it? I understand how it works but I see no advantage to it over the tree view. I always enable the "expand to location" option so that my tree view is exactly where I am. To me that address bar abomination is just an obfuscation of otherwise useful information with large clickable regions of functionality I don't want.

I think you are in the minority here. For most people, navigating from one folder to another is not "functionality I don't want" in a desktop folder browser, but is the main thing you want to do. I'd much rather have UI that lets me navigate efficiently than that makes it efficient to copy-and-paste arbitrary substrings within a folder path. I do the former almost every time I use the file browser and the latter basically never.

My main computer is a Mac and I very much wish its "Finder" had navigation tools as nice as the "breadcrumb bar" you are describing in Windows.

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#89

Post by ygra » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:35 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #54

ruipgil wrote: post #10

I might be the minority here, but I think that using the backspace to go back is counter intuitive. In my mind backspace is to delete something, and I always worry about that.

Backspace and Escape have always had different behavior contextually. In videogames the Escape key is almost always "back".

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.)

Re: Chrome removes Backspace to go back

#90

Post by ygra » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

ruipgil wrote: post #10

I might be the minority here, but I think that using the backspace to go back is counter intuitive. In my mind backspace is to delete something, and I always worry about that.

We're creatures of habit. In this case it's a behaviour that existed for two decades or so. Sure, it doesn't make much sense, but the same goes for various functions of the middle mouse button, depending on context: open new tab, close tab, open new application, close window, scroll, paste. Yet you don't see anyone changing those.