Comments on: The Dreaded Back Button

By: Tony Gravagno

Tony Gravagno — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:28:42 +0000

With apologies, I’m starting to delete comments. I don’t have time to argue, I barely have time to give away free solutions. Please argue somewhere else. I’m also deleting comments that go too far off-topic. My solutions work. If you disagree with the solution I’ll consider alternatives, but don’t tell me what I’ve already done doesn’t work - the proof that it does work is right here for everyone to see.

By: DvRa

DvRa — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:58:23 +0000

sure if you gotta do it you gotta do it. But don’t slang the facility please.
If you would like to look at ENFLATDM in the FTP site and you use D3 in your web site you should be able to enhance the back button so the user can see their entire history of movements through your site (in a pop up similar to a DOS dirrectory) with relative ease. It may not be the solution you want , but purhaps then you could be rid of the back button with impunity by providing a superior solution , which you can then control?.

By: Tony Gravagno

Tony Gravagno — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 09:39:48 +0000

Huh? If you’re saying I’ve removed the Back button in order to avoid coding around the problem, OK, guilty as charged. But the problem is solved. If you have another solution, feel free to tell us. Before you post here please consider your words carefully, I don’t want to debate this topic which has been discussed by thousands before us. I’m providing solutions here. If you have a solution I’m interested, if all you have to offer is rhetoric I really don’t want to clutter this blog. Thanks for your comments.

By: DvRa

DvRa — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 09:01:36 +0000

goal dirrected processing has long been a feature of computer programming and the removal of such facilities the provence of the inferior programer for whom maintaining such is simply a useless chore that is simply to difficult to bother with. Unfortunatly users like to have goal directed capability simply because so much of what that acually do involves the pursuit of various goals.

By: Tony Gravagno

Tony Gravagno — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 22:29:06 +0000

The question comes up occasionally about closing the parent window after a child has been launched. That’s not always a good idea but it’s technically possible. I wrote up the notes at the following link about an eon ago. I haven’t tried to use these scripts with DesignBais yet but I’ll bet they’d work. Please let me know if you use this:

http://nebula-rnd.com/freeware/html_1/

By: Tony Gravagno

Tony Gravagno — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:30:40 +0000

Once the user jumps into a window with an application there will be no previous page, you're right. But many apps consist of multiple pages, and many developers are concerned about what happens after that first page. Depending on the tools, an end-user could still right click for a context menu and then select Back. There's no perfect way to avoid this issue given the medium - someone intent on breaking your web app will find a way to do so.

If you're dealing with mature adults who need to use your software in a business context then removing the Back button should be good enough to remove temptation and remind them that hitting that button is a bad thing.

If you have a different audience then you may need to reconsider how you're writing or presenting your application. For what it's worth, I know a lot of kids spend time in forums and web-based games, and they know they should never hit the Back button. They learn from the first time that doing this stops them from getting what they want. If kids can learn this lesson quickly then adults can too. If your response to that is "you don't know my users", then (hard line here) this is where I think discipline and professionalism need to play a bigger role in the implementation of technology.

BTW, I neglected to mention in the article that the status bar also goes away when we open windows like this. Add the ",status" option to bring it back.

By: phil short

phil short — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:11:43 +0000

I guess I should have tried this before commenting!
The trick (obvious when you think about it) is that the backspace has nothing to go back to, so you cannot exit the application this way. Try taking the "options" parameter out of the window.open command and you’ll see what I mean.
Which leads me to think it’s not disabling the backspace which is key here, it’s not having something to go back to - because you opened the app in a new window. In which case the function works just as well without any options, in terms of ‘disabling’ the back button(s) at least.
The "dreaded back button" is in fact just one facet of the problem, and there are still plenty of other opportunities to browse away from the app on the toolbar, so getting rid of the chrome is probably the way to go nevertheless.

By: phil short

phil short — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 08:18:48 +0000

The fairly obvious and rather large hole in your soultion is that the backspace button on the keyboard also performs the same function. A macro to make THAT button dissappear may be a little harder to write!