Excluding page from back button history

Hi all,

I'd like a page to be excluded from the back button history, that is,
when a user hits their browser's back button, it never backs into this
particular page.

Can anybody please tell me how to do this?

I thought perhaps there would be some kind of special meta tag that
says something like "exclude me from browser's history", but have been
unable to find what I'm looking for.

Any pointers would be very much appreciated.

On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:42:52 +0100, <jim.richardson (AT) hiteclabs (DOT) com> wrote:

I'd like a page to be excluded from the back button history, that is,
when a user hits their browser's back button, it never backs into this
particular page.

Can anybody please tell me how to do this?

I thought perhaps there would be some kind of special meta tag that
says something like "exclude me from browser's history", but have been
unable to find what I'm looking for.

Any pointers would be very much appreciated.

There is no such thing. However:
- if you're doing this to prevent the message that's something like 'the
page is expired, resubmit values?' look into header redirects on the page
receiving the posted values.
- pages altered/loaded with javascript don't always show up in the
history: ask in comp.lang.javascript when exactly pages are added, and
when they're not. The reverse of your issue (I _want_ to have the page in
the history) has been tackled a lot.
--
Rik Wasmus

jim.richardson (AT) hiteclabs (DOT) com wrote:

Hi all,

I'd like a page to be excluded from the back button history, that is,
when a user hits their browser's back button, it never backs into this
particular page.

Without further information about *why* you want that, we can just think
that you're trying to do something evil. The user should be the only
master of what he keeps in the history.
If it's because you want to redirect an URL to another one, than, don't
use the ugly HTML META hack, use proper HTTP 301 redirects, and you'll get
a good history handling by all browsers.

--
If you've a question that doesn't belong to Usenet, contact me at
<tabkanDELETETHISnaz at yahoDELETETHATo.fr>

On 12/3/2007 2:42 AM, jim.richardson (AT) hiteclabs (DOT) com wrote:

Hi all,

I'd like a page to be excluded from the back button history, that is,
when a user hits their browser's back button, it never backs into this
particular page.

Can anybody please tell me how to do this?

I thought perhaps there would be some kind of special meta tag that
says something like "exclude me from browser's history", but have been
unable to find what I'm looking for.

Any pointers would be very much appreciated.

The most effective way to do that is to launch the page in a new window.
However, that too is considered user-hostile. Launching a new window
is so much condemned that several browsers now have the options to
display such pages in a new tab on the same window and even to reuse the
current window for the page, defeating any attempt to force a new window.

Note that one of the "W3C Quality Assurance Tips for Webmasters" at
<http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/> is subtitled: "Don't break the back
button!" Research shows that the Back button is one of the two most
frequently used capabilities of browsers.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Natural foods can be harmful: Look at all the
people who die of natural causes.

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed jim.richardson (AT) hiteclabs (DOT) com
writing in news:de0d9b7b-c43a-489f-a8a7-
ef2730ac230a (AT) d61g2000hsa (DOT) googlegroups.com:

Hi all,

I'd like a page to be excluded from the back button history, that is,
when a user hits their browser's back button, it never backs into this
particular page.

Can anybody please tell me how to do this?

I thought perhaps there would be some kind of special meta tag that
says something like "exclude me from browser's history", but have been
unable to find what I'm looking for.

Any pointers would be very much appreciated.

Me thinks this might be a form, or a series of forms. Best thing to do
is to check server side. You really don't want to mess with the user's
browser, as others have pointed out.

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

Hi all,

Thanks for all your suggestions, but I can assure you that it my
purpose is not evil. Or at least I don't think it is.

To give you a bit more info, what I'm actually doing is developing an
ISAPI application which allows the users to enter one or more rows of
data into a database table.

The problem is, that I want to allow them to add many rows of data
(with each page representing a single row of data), by providing them
with a "submit this row and add another new row" button (so to speak),
which will take them to another page for creating a new row.

Of course, if they choose to create 10 new rows, this means that they
would have to hit the back button 10 times before they get back to the
page that they wanted to get back to. All I want to do is mark each
editing page as "don't include in the back history" so that when they
click back the first time, it goes back to the page that they want to
get back to.

Again, any thoughts on all this will be appreciated...

On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:38:19 +0100, Jim <jim.richardson (AT) hiteclabs (DOT) com>
wrote:

Thanks for all your suggestions, but I can assure you that it my
purpose is not evil. Or at least I don't think it is.

To give you a bit more info, what I'm actually doing is developing an
ISAPI application which allows the users to enter one or more rows of
data into a database table.

The problem is, that I want to allow them to add many rows of data
(with each page representing a single row of data), by providing them
with a "submit this row and add another new row" button (so to speak),
which will take them to another page for creating a new row.

Of course, if they choose to create 10 new rows, this means that they
would have to hit the back button 10 times before they get back to the
page that they wanted to get back to. All I want to do is mark each
editing page as "don't include in the back history" so that when they
click back the first time, it goes back to the page that they want to
get back to.

If I'd do that (hit the back button), I'd like to see my previously
entered row (my UA will remember what I entered in those fields)...

Again, any thoughts on all this will be appreciated...

Store the 'calling page' somewhere (either in a server-side session or a
hidden form-input), and also provide them with a "submit this row and then
send me back to the overview I was coming from"-button (use a HTTP header
redirect to send them back), and/or possible a "just go back to the
overview and disregard what I was doing here"-button or link.
--
Rik Wasmus

Jim wrote:

Hi all,

Thanks for all your suggestions, but I can assure you that it my
purpose is not evil. Or at least I don't think it is.

To give you a bit more info, what I'm actually doing is developing an
ISAPI application which allows the users to enter one or more rows of
data into a database table.

The problem is, that I want to allow them to add many rows of data
(with each page representing a single row of data), by providing them
with a "submit this row and add another new row" button (so to speak),
which will take them to another page for creating a new row.

Of course, if they choose to create 10 new rows, this means that they
would have to hit the back button 10 times before they get back to the
page that they wanted to get back to.

Assuming they have some reason to return to that page, they *can* click
the little arrow next to the back button and then select it from the
pop-up menu.

You can also have a link on your page that takes them to it if you think
it's something they're likely to want to do.

All I want to do is mark each
editing page as "don't include in the back history" so that when they
click back the first time, it goes back to the page that they want to
get back to.

Again, any thoughts on all this will be appreciated...

Rik Wasmus wrote:

I'd like a page to be excluded from the back button history
...
Can anybody please tell me how to do this?

I think one way to do this is to send them to a page which causes a
redirect to the page you want them to go to. I've often seen people
complaining that such a mechanism breaks the history mechanism.

It may be necessary to achieve the redirect with a real "Status: 302"
HTTP header rather than relying on those "airy-fairy" pragma schemes.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

Jim wrote:

Thanks for all your suggestions, but I can assure you that it my
purpose is not evil. Or at least I don't think it is.

Your intent wasn't evil, but the resulting web page would be evil.

The problem is, that I want to allow them to add many rows of data
(with each page representing a single row of data), by providing them
with a "submit this row and add another new row" button (so to speak),
which will take them to another page for creating a new row.

Of course, if they choose to create 10 new rows, this means that they
would have to hit the back button 10 times before they get back to the
page that they wanted to get back to.

No, they wouldn't have to. Most people have their own browsing style and
don't like it to be modified/broken by web sites.
Some users are aware of "advanced" browser features such as a back history
shown in a popup menu that most browsers provide.
Other users use multi-page or multi-windows browsing (even IE 4 and NS 4
provide this feature) and would've kept the home page open.
Other users may have assigned a keyboard shortcut or bookmarked the page,
and access it with a keyboard shortcut, nickname, click, or even type the
URL by hand with or without help of auto-completion.
Or, they may follow a link (A element) to the "home" page on the form
page. If you didn't provide this link, then, you should add it. You may
even provide a form button "submit last row" that would go back (303 See
Also) to the home page.

All I want to do is mark each
editing page as "don't include in the back history" so that when they
click back the first time, it goes back to the page that they want to
get back to.

1) They would be confused.
2) They would be frustrated of not being able to see the previous page
when they want to check some data they typed or saw.
3) This would "break the back and back history buttons", but also "break
the history panel" or add an inconsistency between the back history and
the general history.

Additionally, your database system must accept the fact that people can
post data several times. Ideally, it should do what the user expects. For
this problem, I think that the most appropriate behavior is to modify the
specific row if the data is posted again, unless the posted data is empty.

That way, it would be easy to fix the errors, by using the back history!

--
Sincerely.
André Gillilbert.