61606 - backspace acts as hotkey for "Back"

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect, P4)

Description

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

people tell me this I.E. feature is really useful.

while browsing, as long as focus isn't in a text area, have backspace go "Back"
in history.

any reason we couldn't do this?

Comment 1

[Cormac F]

Em..it already does!
Build 2000112908 WinNt

Pressing backspace brings me to the previous site in history.

Comment 2

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

it doesn't on my linux build.  maybe my build is old.  I'll try a more recent build.

Comment 3

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

fyi.  on a fresh linux build, it doesn't work.

Comment 4

[Fabian Guisset]

We've had this for a long time.. on win32 anyway. Maybe this is a win-only feature?
Fabian.

Comment 5

[Luis Villa]

Speaking as a Linux user/QA volunteer: this feature caused a bug under Linux, in
that using the backspace key in some text-entry fields (like this one) would
invoke the "back" behavior. This was fixed, but it would appear that that
occured at the expense of the entire functionality (which I had always thought
was a pure bug... guess not :) I'm trying to find the old bug to attach it here
and see if the folks who took care of that might have input on this.

Comment 6

[Blake Ross]

Attachment: patch

Comment 7

[Blake Ross]

windows and os2 had this, but linux didn't.  this should work, i can't test it 
though.  r/sr ?

(alec, can I take this?)

Comment 8

[Alec Flett]

can you make sure this doesn't break linux? If this is going to go on all
platforms, can we put it in a common keyboard bindings file?

Comment 9

[Blake Ross]

I don't have linux set up.  jag, can you test?

alec: mac doesn't currently seem to have this.  I suppose it should?  so how 
about browserBindings.xul?

Comment 10

[Peter "jag" Annema]

Backspace on Linux is used to go up a page, as opposed to space which goes down 
a page. Please don't replace that binding, you'd be messing with a lot of 
peoples' heads.

Comment 11

[Blake Ross]

So is this bug a wontfix?

Comment 12

[Peter "jag" Annema]

I guess so.

Comment 13

[Blake Ross]

unless anyone wants to argue or wants it on mac...

Comment 14

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

No sir! Backspace is for deleting stuff. The idea that it would do anything else 
anywhere is truly creepy.

Comment 15

[Alec Flett]

and the spacebar is for inserting whitespace.. but we use it to scroll, always 
have, and IE copied the behavior.

Comment 16

[Peter "jag" Annema]

Just like we use back-space to scroll up on unix.

In my opinion, those keybindings should never have been, but because of parity
with NS4 and other products, we've put per-platform keybindings in, which is
okay I guess, people are used to those, but let's not introduce new ones, let
alone change existing bindings.

Someone switching from IE on Windows to Mozilla on unix already expects some
culture shock, and as soon as I get bug 47426 checked in we can make
accel-left/right show in the menus increasing their discoverability.

If IE on Mac or NS on Mac did 'backspace navigates back', we should implement
that, if not, then not.

Comment 17

[Blake Ross]

Anyone know if it (mac) did?

Comment 18

[Andrew Thompson]

On the Mac - just tried it in 4.76 and not as far as I can tell.

Of course, I have a dinky keyboard with only one delete key. Its in the position 
of a PC "Backspace" key but the label on it says "Delete"

(I think on Mac keyboards which do have 2 delete keys the other has an icon on it 
which is supposed to emote "right delete") but since I don't have this key I 
dunno if pressing it would go "back a page" in 4.X. Anyone?

Anyways... I don't recall this ever working on Mac OS in 4.X 

Comment 19

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

And I have a `U.S.S. Enterprise' (extended) Mac keyboard, with both Backspace 
(`delete') and Delete (`del') keys, and can confirm that neither Navigator 4.7 
nor Internet Explorer 4.5 use either Backspace or Delete to go back on Mac OS. 
Verifying wontfix.