Back button bug (IE 6)

Topic

New Reply

The “back” button in IE 6, as in previous versions, scrolls vertically but not horizontally. This is causing problems for me on the page
http://www.bikexprt.com/map/mapguide.htm. Try clicking on one of the links (in red) to column C or D in the text underneath the first graphic, and then click the “back” button to return to the text. You will see a blank screen and have to scroll left to get back where you were.

This is a bug. Web pages are two-dimensional, not one-dimensional, and the navigation buttons ought to reflect that! Is there a workaround?

Note: this page has nearly about 750 kB of graphics (efficiently coded, but *very* large), so if you don’t have a fast connection, have something else to occupy your time while it downloads.

Reply | Quote

Replies

The webmaster has designed the site to do this, or have made an error in his (her) coding. If you were to click area in the map, it will bring up a ZOOMED view of the area. To get back to the full map, just click on the screen again. The back will send you to a blank area of the page. Look at your scrollbars and watch what happens when you click back. You can then scroll to the full map.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

DaveA is checking what happens when clicking on the small map neart he top of the page. Click instead in the links (red text) in the paragarphs below the map. Then when those take you to the right hand columns (C and D) of the large map, click the “Back” button and you will see that IE fails to scroll horizontally to take you back to the left side of the page where the text is. Unless your copy of IE is somehow different from mine…

I am the Webmaster in question!

Reply | Quote

Hi, John ~

I think DaveA did exactly what you suggested as did I: click the red text links in the paragraphs below the map. He is correct it will bring up a zoomed view of the map and clicking it will bring you back to the smaller version of the map. I believe that this is not an IE bug but rather an issue of the way the coding is used in the ‘#’ page jump tag.

Reply | Quote

I can see the problem you refer to. But it seems more like one of those MS “by design” features. That is, “back” in effect takes you back to a “line number” on the page, rather than to a “line/column”, or “x:y” grid location. The same happens on your page with “forward”. It also locates only to a “line number”.

While the web pages may appear as 2D, the underlying document model probably bears more resemblance to a linear word document than a 2D excel spreadsheet.

To workaround your bug, maybe you could make the large map into a popup. You’d then need to either make the map a large button that returns to the parent page (in its current location), or provide a floating button to do so.

When you reported the bug to MS in prevous versions of IE, did they indicate it would be fixed in version 6?

Reply | Quote

I don’t really think this behavior is “by design” — there is no advantage whatever for the user, under any circumstances, for the “Back” button not to do what it purports to do. I think this behavior reflects all too typical programmer blindness — programmers looking at the code rather than at the user’s (reported as erroneous spelling) experience. Locating to a “line number” just doesn’t cut it, because Web pages don’t consist of lines, they consist of a two-dimensional plane, which contains various items at different locations. Apparently, the developers of IE did not consider that Web pages might be in some cases much wider than the computer screen. The “Back” button should go back to the same X-Y coordinates. Now, if the page has been refreshed since the previous viewing, there is a possibility that different content may be at this location. Let me propose an appropriate behavior for that situation: if the same code does not underlie the content there as before, IE should alert the user, and offer the option to search for that content..

This functionality would require the “Back” function to be aware of the content of the page as displayed on the user’s screen, and not only of the underlying code. Howeve,r (not reported as erroneous spelling) browsers (reported as erroneous spelling, and so is “Woody’s”!!!) operate on the client side, so that should be easy enough to implement. If the “Back” function did not find the same code underlying the content at the location, then it might alert the user and offer to search for that code.

I didn’t report my “Back” problem directly to Microsoft previously, but I did this time. Granted, it is usually good practice to keep a Web page narrower than screen width, but in the case of a map or other graphic which must be displayed larger than the screen to have sufficient detail, then the approach I used — having a small version for reference, with links into the large version — is the best that can be done. I could have used a popup, but why should I have to?

Reply | Quote

I intended the “by design” as a recognition of what is, rather than arguing for its correctness, or validity. I agree that the back/forward buttons should ideally relocate you to the exact same spot where you were.

The popup suggestion was for one way that may allow you to achieve the functionality you’re seeking, wihtin the limitations apparently imposed by IE. As demonstrated by your page, the IE back/forward functions seem to work to on a linear, rather than 2D basis. If that’s case, the choices are that you either wait until that changes, or find a way to work with it.

Reply | Quote

Is this related to the problem you posted here in May ’02?

Reply | Quote