GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 169828
Backspace Button Does Not Work As A "Back" Button
Last modified: 2007-06-18 13:41:18 UTC
Making the Backspace button work as a "Back" button as in all other sensible browsers would be a nice addition. I hate having to move my mouse everytime i want to go back in page history :P Other information: Nothing special...
What happens when you're editing text in a text entry, try to backspace but in fact the focus happens to be on something else? You go back, and lose all your work. BTW, you can go back/forth with Alt-Left/Alt-Right.
If you use the context menu on your webpage (right click) you almost won't have to move the mouse to select Back. You can also use Shift+scrollwheel. However, chpe, if your scenario happens currently in epiphany when you go back when editing a form, then the unsaved-form-info dialogue should kick in!
Possibly a crazy idea, but Backspace could also be defined to mean "Go up" one level because that's roughly similar to what Nautilus does.
IMHO backspace should never do anything but delete the character to the left of the cursor.
*** Bug 319164 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 337300 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Using Alt+Left/Right means that people who have a keyboard with 102 or 105 keys (e.g. Belgian, German, etc.) have to use two hands to invoke one of the most used functionalities in a web browser: the only Alt-key they have is at the left side, while the arrow keys are on the right side of the keyboard. So IMHO this is a problem of rather basic useability. The "backspace with wrong focus" issue can be solved by implementing a warning dialog similar to what you get when closing a tab with unposted form fields (like reinouts already said).
Please implement this simple keybinding. I've never ever heard of anyone getting hurt by Firefox and Internet Explorers Backspace-as-a-back-button-keybinding. It is good for everyone (especially disabled) and bad for noone.
*** Bug 409406 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
(In reply to comment #1) > What happens when you're editing text in a text entry, try to backspace but in > fact the focus happens to be on something else? You go back, and lose all your work. Well, it should stay put if we're entering a web form. How different is it from the '/' key popping up the find menu when no entry is selected, but not when entering data? If the difference is data loss, I expect the "unsaved form" dialogue to show up if I'm about to lose data using "backspace" to go back, as Reinout mentioned.
updating version.
we are talking about the location window when you in put 'about:config' are we not? I like the use of the backspace when browsing the web and this line does not seem to exist in that page when you open it, so no back space. LINE: browser.backspace_action user set integer 1 which when changed to 0 allows the backspace key to work while web browsing.
Closing as WONTFIX as discussed on IRC with chpe.