496106 - Anytime I hit the delete key, the browser goes back a page in history. This is supposed to be the alt-left key option.

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Description

[James Herbstman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10

The summary tells the whole problem.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Hit the delete key
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
Browser goes back a page

Expected Results:  
the type to be freaking deleted

i tried re-installing firefox, same result

Comment 1

[roberjruiz]

Happens also with 3.6.3

This happens whenever the focus is not in a form field. When you hit the delete/backspace key, it goes back in history. When the focus is on a text field, it works as expected, deleting a character.

It may happen that you are filling a form with lots of data. At sometime you may hit the delete key triying to correct something, but you didn't notice there is not a field on focus. Then, browser goes back in history, and you have lost all the work.

This is very annoying. Such a common key as "delete", should not have an special function like "go back in history". It should be a combination that you can't hit accidentally. ie Ctrl+Delete

Comment 2

[Olaf van der Spek]

I use Backspace instead of Alt-Left all the time, because it's easier. So please don't unbind it.

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

That's the default on Windows (same as in Internet Explorer), but it can be changed. See <http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action>

Note : it's actually on the backspace key (upper right corner of the keyboard), not the delete key. They are not the same. Only Macs call it a delete key, but that's because it's a backwards-delete (the other one is a forward-delete). It doesn't really help that there are keyboards that label those keys differently, unfortunately, causing lots of confusion among users.