96582 - Forward button should remember multiple "click paths" through websites

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 21521

(Core :: DOM: Navigation, enhancement)

Description

[Vaughn Gardner]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:0.9.2) Gecko/20010628
BuildID:    2001062815

The "forward" button could be made more useful by making its drop-down menu
remember and display all of the alternate paths that the user has taken forward
from the current location.  A small arrow pointing to the right could be placed
next to each location in the drop-down menu where an alternate path is
available, much the same way that bookmark folders display their contents.  The
drop-down menu and the default action when the forward button is clicked would
not otherwise change.

Reproducible: N/A
Steps to Reproduce: N/A

Actual Results:  N/A

Expected Results:  N/A

The problem I'm trying to solve with this suggestion is that the forward button
is only useful if I want to get back to where I just barely was; if I backtrack
and then take a different path, the locations "forward" of where I backtracked
to get forgotten by the history array.  And while those locations aren't truly
forgotten, just stored in the global history, they can't be conveniently
re-accessed.  

The problem could be solved by storing the session history in a way that
preserves the different paths taken by the user.  This would probably require
storing it in a tree of some sort instead of a 1-D array (I won't be holding my
breath for this to make it into 1.0)...

Like I mentioned above, the only change that would be necessary for the UI would
be that there would be an arrow next to the locations where an alternate path is
available.  The locations visited along alternate paths would appear as a
drop-down menus next to the main one, sort of like how it happens now with the
bookmarks folders when there are subfolders whose contents need to be displayed.

Anyway, I'm submitting this in the Browser-General category because the closest
bug that I could find in the database (#74841) got shuffled back and forth
between the Browser-General and History:Session components before being
permanently filed in Browser-General.

Comment 1

[Christopher Aillon (sabbatical, not receiving bugmail)]

Interesting, but valid Request.  Marking NEW and sending to History: Session for
right now for triaging, though Global might come in to play later on.  Changing
the summary also from the very general 'Suggestion for making the "forward"
button more useful'

And now for some comments.  :)  I think this is a wontfix because it gets too
complicated on larger browsing sessions.  For example:

Visit sites A, B, C, go back one and then go to site D and go back a page again.
 You are at site D and the forward button has C and D memorized.  You click to
site C and go to sites E, F, and G, then back to site B again and go to site D.
 From there you go to sites H, I, J and well you can see where I'm going. 
Eventually you'll be remembering a ton of page paths.  On browsing sessions
where you do tons of forwards and backs, would we really want this "feature"?

It sounds good, but I'm not sure if it is very practical to do this.

Comment 2

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 21521 ***

Comment 3

[Claudius Gayle]

VERIFIED Dupe