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Author Topic: Browser Back Button  (Read 8289 times)

Dietrich Sider

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Browser Back Button
« on: November 09, 2004, 05:47:26 PM »

Hi Ernie

Using the back button on my browser on these forums always takes me to the -top- of the previous page, rather than to wherever I scrolled down to, as is normal with any other page I've ever surfed.

This is an issue because of the way I like to surf forums. I use the tree view, scroll down slowly until I find a topic that interests me, then -back- out again when I'm done, leaving me at the top of that long list of topics I just passed over.

I've taken to using the next topic and previous topic links at the bottom of each post, but those don't always work correctly either - they get screwed up when a post gets moved to a different forum.

I'm not sure what can be done about it, but it would be nice if one of those two things could be fixed.

Thanks

Dietrich
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Dietrich Sider

Mac Kerr

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2004, 07:55:51 PM »

I use Safari under Mac OSX 10.2.8, and the back button takes me back to the spot on the list where I last was. It may miss by a little if a now topic has been added at the top while I was reading. It does do this in 2 steps, where it takes me to the top first, then jumps down to where I was. Unfortunately it does not back out through my posting well.

Mac
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Dietrich Sider

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #2 on: November 09, 2004, 10:00:15 PM »

I'm using Firefox in W2K.

It works properly in Internet Explorer, but I refuse to use IE any longer for security reasons (No adware, spyware, pop-ups, or dialer installs in 3 months of using Firefox!)

I didn't suspect the browser since I had never had any compatibility problems with Firefox thus far, and to my knowledge it is fully W3C compliant (which IE isn't as well).

This may be something I have to live with as a consequence of having a safer browser, but it would be nice if someone could check it out. . .
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Dietrich Sider

Ernie Black

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2004, 08:50:46 AM »

There seems to be an issue with how Firefox targets the back button. Traditionally, the back button takes you back to the previous link focus (e.g., a topic link 2/3 of the way down a page), but Firefox doesn't exhibit this behavior, or at least not consistently. Here's a thread on another board about the same issue: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/t-27844.htm l. Note that the board software is different to ours; we're running FUDforum 2.6.2, and they're running vBulletin v3.0.3, but people are reporting the same behavior you are.

Here's one reviewer's comment:
Quote:

One nagging annoyance of Firefox: When you are on a lengthy page of links (for instance, the A-Section of the local paper), and you click a link to read it, then come back to the initial page, you are at the top of the page again. In IE, when you scrolled halfway down the page, then clicked a link and came back, you were positioned halfway down the page. The strange thing is that I could swear this has worked on some sites. Perhaps I'm missing something simple, but it would be nice if this could work as IE did (did I really say that?).
For full text, see http://jayseae.cxliv.org/2004/03/04/revisiting_the_browser.h tml.

FF is an outstanding browser, btw--I plan to download the newly released v 1.0 soon. In many ways a superior browser to IE, Netscape 7.x, or Opera on the PC. I don't know about the Mac; I just run IE 5.2 on my Mac OS X -- needs to be upgraded.
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Ernie Black, Code Warrior
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Dietrich Sider

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2004, 10:28:04 AM »

Exactly! It works on every other site I frequent, just not this one. Perhaps it has something to do with the dynamic content generation. I might try playing with the settings for when it checks for newer versions of cached pages. (If I can find the settings)
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Dietrich Sider

Ernie Black

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2004, 10:59:16 AM »

I'm not familiar enough with FF to guess what's causing it, but whatever the cause, it's in the category of "known bugs" (whether Mozilla or FF consider it a bug, I don't know) with the FF browser since it's not limited to our site or software but is evident on other sites running other software. Perhaps it has something to do with how FF caches dynamically generated pages, which in effect is a good thing if it's refreshing the page each time so that you don't miss newer content, but which can also be annoying. Let me know what you discover. I think FF is going to easily become the new Mozilla standard and will erode IE's dominance (though I also suspect that IE--or whatever M$ replaces it with in Longhorn two years or more from now--will retain at least a 75-80% market dominance on the PC.
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Ernie Black, Code Warrior
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Mac Kerr

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2004, 06:15:10 PM »

Ernie wrote on Wed, 10 November 2004 08:50


FF is an outstanding browser, btw--I plan to download the newly released v 1.0 soon. In many ways a superior browser to IE, Netscape 7.x, or Opera on the PC. I don't know about the Mac; I just run IE 5.2 on my Mac OS X -- needs to be upgraded.
You should at least try Safari on OSX. I find it much faster, and more flexible than IE, however there are some sites that don't work well. TVGuide.com is one, and I keep IE in my dock just to get TV listings.

Mac
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Ernie Black

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2004, 07:29:32 PM »

Good idea. I've got to do some upgrading for my Mac anyway; it's OS X, but pretty early generation, so it needs updating. I like it, but I do all my development on a far more powerful PC (not that I love Windoze, just that I've got the horsepower and the programs on the PC), so I don't use the Mac that much. Mostly for cross-platform testing.
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Ernie Black, Code Warrior
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Dave Stevens

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #8 on: November 12, 2004, 03:04:19 AM »

I primarily use Camino and sometimes Firefox.  Rarely Safari and never IE.  

Dave
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Ernie Black

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #9 on: November 12, 2004, 08:34:29 AM »

I'll have to look into Camino. From what I've read, it's the latest, possibly the best implementation of Mozilla on the Mac, right? From what I've seen so far, Firefox may be the best browser on Windoze. I love the tab feature and the Gecko layout engine seems to be pretty solid, possibly the best implementation of CSS yet--much better than Netscape, which I think is bloated. I suspect I'll still have to rely on IE on a Windoze box as the base browser simply because it owns the market--even here, where there's a significant minority browsing with Mozilla browsers and Macs. Our logs show a steady increase in non-IE browsers in recent history. For the SR Forums in particular, in 2004 to date (April to Nov) IE accounts for 79% of users, with Mozilla at 10.5%, Safari at 5%, and Netscape at 3.5%, but from September 1 to date, IE has dropped to 76.5% and Mozilla has climbed to 13.4%, with Safari and Netscape holding steady. So IE still has the lion's share by far, but it is slipping.

This also indicates an increased presence of Mozilla on PCs, not just Macs, because from Sept to now, Windoze has a 91.36% share and Macs 7.73% (Linux is third with only 0.75%). For 2004 to date it's pretty close, with Windoze at 90.98% and Mac at 7.78%. This indicates an increasing share of Mozilla browsers but not of Mac users.
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Ernie Black, Code Warrior
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Dietrich Sider

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2004, 10:35:16 AM »

I am definitely one of those who changed your stats - I switched to Firefox on my PC this summer and haven't looked back.

The features I really appreciate:

Tabbed Browsing
Pop-up blocker extension
Google on the Toolbar
Security - comes pre-configured to warn about or block ad-ware, spy-ware etc. When it comes across a script it doesn't like, it blocks it and notifies you.

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Dietrich Sider

Ernie Black

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #11 on: November 12, 2004, 10:46:50 AM »

To give Redmound what little credit it deserves, M$ implemented block-up blocking and additional security with XP SP2. Not that I recommend IE over Firefox, far from it. But they are feeling the heat and are trying to adapt. I'm not crazy abut Google on the toolbar; I keep my toolbar as small and uncluttered as possible.
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Ernie Black, Code Warrior
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Dave Stevens

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #12 on: November 12, 2004, 02:03:23 PM »

Camino is the Gecko engine in an app written using the Cocoa framework, the native OSX object oriented environment.  To get the most from OSX Apple suggests developers use Cocoa.  Camino is couple of revs behind but still pretty stable though it's still beta.

Firefox is the Gecko engine using procedural methods accessing the Carbon API and libs and XUL interface widgets.  It's the next generation "Mozilla" though the Mozilla group has changed the way they work and the names of the product offerings in recent years.

The deal with IE isn't so much pop ups, it's the security model.  About a year ago I took the last XP Pro desktop I had and turned it into a Linux box.  There was so much spyware and malware I couldn't keep it current. It will be interesting to see what kind of conversion stats on Windows to Firefox browsers come in the next year or so while Longhorn is delayed.

Dave
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Ernie Black

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #13 on: November 12, 2004, 02:12:34 PM »

I will definitely keep an eye on the trend of users to migrate from IE to FF over the next year. In terms of user base, this is the biggest thing since IE made chopped liver of Netscape, and can only bode well.
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Ernie Black, Code Warrior
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Bosstard

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #14 on: November 12, 2004, 10:12:13 PM »

I also use FireFox, and love it. I like it much better then IE. I love the fact that it gets rid of spyware, blocks pop ups and is safer. I'll never use anything else.. Just a bummer that some sites dont support FF...


Steven.
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Ernie Black

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #15 on: November 12, 2004, 11:05:50 PM »

Browsers and sites should ideally support standards. While we developers, designers, and programmers have made great strides (just look at any contemporary site making more than a barebones use of CSS in Netscape 4.7 or earlier and compare with any browser today for example), cross-platform and cross-browser issues still remain due to differences in standards implementation. FF is very new--brand new, if you don't count the beta versions--so it will take time to catch on. Sites shouldn't be developed just to support a specific browser or platform, but until standards are uniformly implemented, we'll probably be stuck with some degree of "looks better in IE 6.0" or whatever. With a 75-80% market share of IE and 90% of Windows PCs at PSW, our bottom line requires this combination as the baseline. But I test on multiple browsers and on both the PC (Windows XP/2000 and even 98) and Mac (OS X, plus others in the company on OS 9). With FF making inroads, I will be looking more closely at FF support. But I think FF may be the most compliant browser on the PC, so support really shouldn't be an issue. The back button issue is one I've seen reported re: multiple sites running different software, so that looks like an FF issue at this point, but it bears looking at.

Any feedback you want to provide--with specifics such as your browser version, OS, Internet connection, page(s) in question, etc.--are welcomed.
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Ernie Black, Code Warrior
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Ondrej Gratz

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #16 on: January 06, 2005, 04:46:00 AM »

Quote:

I'm not sure what can be done about it, but it would be nice if one of those two things could be fixed.


Yes, it would be great if the back button worked. I use Firefox 1.0.
My temporary solution is to open the topic in a new tab (click while holding Ctrl key). When I close it (Ctrl+F4), I'm back.

I can return to the right position using Back button on http://fudforum.org/.
They're using version 2.6.9. Perhaps the problem would be solved if the administrator upgraded to this version.

Anyway, this forum's great.
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Ondrej Gratz

Dave Stevens

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Re: Browser Back Button
« Reply #17 on: January 07, 2005, 10:04:03 PM »

It's not as easy as just upgrading.  There are several patches that need to be tested and applied in specific orders anytime an upgrade is performed as well as a difference in the data structure.  Ilia has a ton of custom code in this particular version and theres more to it than running the upgrader.

Dave

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http://www.roaddog.com/racing/
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