Building a Better Back Button

Justin Macfarlane writes "From Stuff: 'Net surfers use the back button more than any other key. A computer scientist has made the command more useful, writes Will Harvie.'"

Next week on /.

[mschoolbus]

Building a better back better back button!

Entropy

[Pac]

Are we now losing energy at every interaction? Are duplicates suffering entropic information loss? I am just asking this because last year this same story was much better.

Building a Better Back button

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, it actually worked. I was able to return to slashdot.org with the simple press of the Back button.

Well,

[Omkar]

I don't know about you, but for me, the back button is a little thing on a toolbar, not a key.

The ultimate back button.

[nesneros]

If I hit back enough do I end up using NCSA Mosaic? Or do I just end up in gopher?

Dupe, dupe, dupe, dupe of Earl, Earl, Earl

[EvilBuu]

If within half an hour of posting a story thirty readers have identified the story as a dupe, there must be some way the /. eds could just run submissions through a filter to detect dupes or not. 'Cause they sure ain't catching them on their own.

The Power Of Goat

[Big Mark]

I use Phoenix and the mouse gestures plugin; this means I end up using the "open in new tab", "change tab" and "close tab" mouse gestures almost exclusively.

However, there is also a "go back" gesture, quite possibly the simplest of them all, and do you want to know what site caused me to use this quick escape?

Goatse!

Now, that's one back button I don't want to EVER have to press!

-Mark

wait a minute

[loveandpeace]

it took them eight years to figure out that people use the Back button even though they don't understand it???

puh-leez. i want a job on this team.

FFS!

[kahei]

It's a stack of visited pages... but instead of being wiped when the process ends, it's persistant, like a history list! Incredible! I'm amazed they haven't patented it yet!

I'm sorry. I don't normally post 'this article sucks' posts, but in this case, it's just so incredibly pathetically tragic, that I just had to. Once again, I'm sorry, and so I'm sure is the guy who posted this wholly and unforgivably lame article.

If he isn't sorry, that is a problem and should be fixed

.

Re:Dupe, dupe, dupe, dupe of Earl, Earl, Earl

[Ratface]

It's almost like they need a special button or something. It could be called the "Back" button perhaps! ;-)

Re:2002 Dupe?

[telstar]

Maybe that's how the new back button works. It takes you back to stuff you've seen a year ago.

It can be worse

[Pac]

You keep hitting back in OpenOffice and end up in vi. You hit back too much in Chatzilla and find yourself in talk.

You backtrack in VisualAge for Java and end up in Simula. Keep going and your code become FORTRAN.

I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

...I never use the back button, I only move forward. It's negativity like the back button that is ruining this country.

Sorry

[Pac]

The Department of Web Browser Backtracking and Forwarding Studies has no open positions at this time. Leave your resume and phone number at the receptionist desk and we will let you know when an opportunity for re-applying arrises.

Where's the up button?

[Bizaff]

It's not as useful as a back button, and not all sites are organized in a way to make it useful. But sometimes I think to myself, "Self.. I wish I had an up button on my browser."

On this train of thought.. would it be that difficult to put one into Mozilla? Everytime I sit down to look into it, some other shiny object comes along.. oo, tin foil

Re:Next week on /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we need a repost.slashdot.org

Re:Back button.

[EvilBudMan]

What we really need is a "South" button. Maybe a "West" button would be nice too, but we could eliminate "North" and "East" since there is really no need to really go there.

M$ Explorer XP5000

This is the first time. . .

[kfg]

I've actually seen someone go so far as to state that an undetectable savings adds up world wide, and thus saves *me* frustration and confusion.

"Why yes, we made the red light 0.002 seconds shorter. Sure you don't notice it, but just think how many people drive through that light every day. It adds up to a total savings of ten seconds a day. Wouldn't you like to get home ten seconds quicker?"

I'd like to know what brand of coffee they've been drinking. It must be kick ass stuff.

These are the same people who think saving me ten seconds a day on mouse movement makes me more productive. They don't know me very good, do they? Here's a clue interface optimization guy, mouse movements don't come out of my productive time, they come out of my staring into space and making pointless movements to make it *look* like I'm being productive time.

People aren't machines. If we don't bloody well feel like being productive we'll fuck your efficiency plans every time.

We always have.

KFG

Back button and PDFs

[Ctrl-Z]

Nothing makes me hit the back button faster than the realization that I've just clicked on a link to a PDF. Come on! Can't you at least warn us?

I started reading the article but...

[coinreturn]

...then I got bored and hit the BACK button.

Coming Soon! Better FORWARD Button!

[Maul]

I have done extensive research and have figured out a way to build a better forward button as well.

Currently the forward button only works after you've hit the back button. This is highly inconvenient, because the forward button is useless when you fire up your browser.

However, my new improved forward button will allow web users to actually click ahead into the future so that they don't have to type the URL of the site they are about to visit. It does this with my patented Mind Matrix Technology (TM) that uses a complex mathematical formula to determine what the user wants to see next.

W key

[Anonymous Coward]

You keep your right hand on the mouse and your left hand near command-w
That's the first time I've heard it called *that*

Backspace really

[hackrobat]

Net surfers use the back button more than any other key.

You mean the backspace key, don't you? Well I think all f^Hcomputr^Her ^Husers use the back ^Hspace key more than any other key/^H.

Just like the TiVo

[hobo2k]

"No honey I was just counter-programming the browser. The foward button thinks I'm gay"