A tricky situation in malone bug 60995

[Fergal Daly]

On 20/10/2007, Nicolas Alvarez <nicolas.alvarez at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/20/07, Aaron C. de Bruyn <ubuntu-devel-discuss at darkpixel.com> wrote:
> > > I installed Ubuntu just yesterday, and backspace not mapping to 'back
> > > in history' is the main annoying thing I found. It happened once or
> > > twice (in a year) that I went one page back when I wanted to delete
> > > text, because I wasn't focused on the right control. But I'd
> > > definitely choose the slight possibility of dataloss in that
> > > particular case, over having backspace duplicate the page up key
> > > (they're close enough on the keyboard!) instead of Alt-Left (which is
> > > a really uncomfortable keystroke).
> >
> > I switched from IE to Firefox for three reasons:
> > 1.  Tabs rock
> > 2.  Open source rocks
> > 3.  Not suddenly finding myself 5 pages back in my history rocks.
> >
> > I would type something in wrong like my password into a webform and hit backspace a few times to correct it.  From time to time, IE would occasionally freak out thinking I wasn't in a text box or something and suddenly I'd find myself 5 pages back in my history.  My guess is someone messing around with .setfocus() or whatever the heck the javascript command is.  About half the time, the data I entered in my form would be lost.
> >
> > Sometimes it would be my fault though.  I'd be filling in a long form, tabbing between fields, and there'd be a link between one set of fields.  I'd either tab on to the link and start typing and (not looking at the screen) realized I mistyped a key and hit backspace, or I would tab past the link, start typing, realize I screwed up the field before the link, hit SHIFT+TAB to go back and correct it (forgetting about the link), hit backspace to clear the contents of the field--and suddenly I'm back a page in my history.  Once again, I would occasionally lose my form data with this.
> >
> > Now maybe firefox is better at saving the form data (I don't pay much attention when it does get saved, just when it gets lost).  And maybe firefox won't be stupid like IE and get confused about backspacing text verses going back a page in history, but I personally feel that backspace is a function related to text.  If you want to go back a page in firefox, use something like ALT+Left Arrow.
> >
> >
> > But the argument can be avoided altogether.  Maybe an option should be added so people can turn on using backspace as a navigation key.
> >
>
> I think that's the wrong solution (and other people have said the same
> on the bug comments). The real solution is showing a message box if
> you change page for *whatever reason* and you have typed text in a
> form. "Are you sure you want to change page, losing what you typed?"
> That would solve it not only for backspace but also clicking a link
> accidentally.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=290474

has been sitting unloved for over 2.5 years now. Notepad.exe still
takes more care to preserve your hard work :(

So unless firefox becomes much more careful about user edits, it seems
to me that using the same key for editing and for destroying your work
is a really bad default setting, especially when it's so easy to
accidentally switch between the 2 contexts,

F

> Somebody commented on the bug saying he tabbed and ended up on a link
> instead of a text field (should have tabbed once more). Pressing
> backspace made it go back. But pressing Enter would have made it
> navigate to the link and lost data too. How does disabling backspace
> help then?
>
> --
> Nicolas
>
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