[thelist] best way to create "back" button

Jackson Yee jyee at vt.edu
Thu Jul 11 22:02:01 CDT 2002


----- Original Message -----
From: "CV" <cervantes_vive at yahoo.com>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 21:41
Subject: Re: [thelist] best way to create "back" button

> I tried implementing a back button w/o JavaScript and
> have not succeded. Using referer did not often work
> since many privacy tools strip this. I used cookies
> then (interestingly most privacy tools did allow this)
> to "follow" a user but when the user clicks on the
> physical 'back' browser button then their location
> will be out of synch with the server :-b
>
> If you can post how you solve this.

JavaScript and the referer are pretty much the ways to do this.  As you've
mentioned though, neither are completely reliable since user agents aren't
required to implement them.  You can combine them by using document.write() to
write out the link and placing the referer variable in a <noscript> tag to
cover those agents without JavaScript, but you still won't get the full 100%
of your audience.

As convenient as a previous link can be when you've just finished scrolling
through a long article, I suggest leaving the browser's back button to
implement the previous page function for those users which JavaScript and the
referer don't work for.  If the user doesn't know how to click the back button
or press the left arrow key in Lynx, then it's time for them to learn how in
order to make their own lives easier.

Regards,
Jackson Yee
jyee at vt.edu
http://www.jacksonyee.com/




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