Microsoft Help Forums: Desparately need to disable Backspace Key as Back Button - Microsoft Help Forums

I happened across this forum and, regardless of its age, the problem is
(apparently) timeless! THANK YOU, MICROSLOTH!

Any programmer who would actually hardcode the keyboard backspace
button to do something as unbelievably moronic and asinine as take your
browser back a page is welcome to tell me why, face to face, so I can
beat the living SH1T out of them! (I wouldn't actually listen. I'd just
beat you senseless while you pedantically, and futilely, tried to
rationalize your stupidity.) And anyone who would obviously defend such
poor programming (you know who you are, Rob ^_^!), is welcome to come
along for the fun. There's plenty of a$$ kicking to go around. Bad
programming is bad programming - plain and simple. Don't say it isn't
MS's fault! THEY WROTE THE F**KING PROGRAM...FROM SCRATCH!! It most
assuredly *-_IS_-* MS's fault. At least with Mac, they can hide behind
the fact that they whored out OpenBSD and made it their b1tch, thus
overlooking one or more uh-oh's in the original code - or ''features''
they added in their new code.

Seriously, WTF?!! You can disable the INSERT key, so it doesn't work
anymore, via a simple registry hack. This backspace\browser
functionality has got to be CHANGED! I'm using IE8 so it's apparently a
''feature'' (MicroSloth loves calling their F'ups ''features'') that's
remained since the inception of IE7.

This just strengthens my decision to lean more toward LINUX and the GPL
code-sharing that goes along with. Dear, God! Microsoft...please...stop
thinking you're Steve Jobs and can force what YOU want down the people's
throats! I know of no one who likes this ''feature'' and would gladly
give my left nut if only it would be removed in its entirety.


--
The_Dave

A lot of words spewed out, but nothing of any value. Did you have an
intellectual vasectomy?
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

undisclosed wrote:
> I happened across this forum and, regardless of its age, the problem is
> (apparently) timeless! THANK YOU, MICROSLOTH!
>
> Any programmer who would actually hardcode the keyboard backspace
> button to do something as unbelievably moronic and asinine as take your
> browser back a page is welcome to tell me why, face to face, so I can
> beat the living SH1T out of them! (I wouldn't actually listen. I'd just
> beat you senseless while you pedantically, and futilely, tried to
> rationalize your stupidity.) And anyone who would obviously defend such
> poor programming (you know who you are, Rob ^_^!), is welcome to come
> along for the fun. There's plenty of a$$ kicking to go around. Bad
> programming is bad programming - plain and simple. Don't say it isn't
> MS's fault! THEY WROTE THE F**KING PROGRAM...FROM SCRATCH!! It most
> assuredly *-_IS_-* MS's fault. At least with Mac, they can hide behind
> the fact that they whored out OpenBSD and made it their b1tch, thus
> overlooking one or more uh-oh's in the original code - or ''features''
> they added in their new code.
>
> Seriously, WTF?!! You can disable the INSERT key, so it doesn't work
> anymore, via a simple registry hack. This backspace\browser
> functionality has got to be CHANGED! I'm using IE8 so it's apparently a
> ''feature'' (MicroSloth loves calling their F'ups ''features'') that's
> remained since the inception of IE7.
>
> This just strengthens my decision to lean more toward LINUX and the GPL
> code-sharing that goes along with. Dear, God! Microsoft...please...stop
> thinking you're Steve Jobs and can force what YOU want down the people's
> throats! I know of no one who likes this ''feature'' and would gladly
> give my left nut if only it would be removed in its entirety.
>
>

<undisclosed> wrote in message
news:4efa271bb18d066ed55b3e08d254a438@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> I happened across this forum and, regardless of its age, the problem is
> (apparently) timeless! THANK YOU, MICROSLOTH!
>
> Any programmer who would actually hardcode the keyboard backspace
> button to do something as unbelievably moronic and asinine as take your
> browser back a page is welcome to tell me why, face to face, so I can
> beat the living SH1T out of them! (I wouldn't actually listen. I'd just
> beat you senseless while you pedantically, and futilely, tried to
> rationalize your stupidity.) And anyone who would obviously defend such
> poor programming (you know who you are, Rob ^_^!), is welcome to come
> along for the fun. There's plenty of a$$ kicking to go around. Bad
> programming is bad programming - plain and simple. Don't say it isn't
> MS's fault! THEY WROTE THE F**KING PROGRAM...FROM SCRATCH!! It most
> assuredly *-_IS_-* MS's fault. At least with Mac, they can hide behind
> the fact that they whored out OpenBSD and made it their b1tch, thus
> overlooking one or more uh-oh's in the original code - or ''features''
> they added in their new code.
>
> Seriously, WTF?!! You can disable the INSERT key, so it doesn't work
> anymore, via a simple registry hack. This backspace\browser
> functionality has got to be CHANGED! I'm using IE8 so it's apparently a
> ''feature'' (MicroSloth loves calling their F'ups ''features'') that's
> remained since the inception of IE7.
>
> This just strengthens my decision to lean more toward LINUX and the GPL
> code-sharing that goes along with. Dear, God! Microsoft...please...stop
> thinking you're Steve Jobs and can force what YOU want down the people's
> throats! I know of no one who likes this ''feature'' and would gladly
> give my left nut if only it would be removed in its entirety.
>


The Backspace Key does backspace detail inside a text box where one might
actually want to backspace. Why would you hit the backspace key at any other
time? And if hitting backspace causes a problems, don't hit it. It really is
that easy.

You "disable" Insert by hitting Insert -- it's a toggle, so it will disable
and enable the feature.

Since you're leaving, don't let the door slam you in the ass on the way out.
B-bye.

Really? That's the best you can come up with? I'm guessing you didn't
actually read my post as you obviously did not grasp what I was saying.
I'm really at a loss as to how this could be considering I typed each
word -*_very_*- slowly, one character at a time, so morons such as
yourself could follow my obvious rationale more easily. But I guess
you'd actually have to have some vestige of intellect to fathom this.


--
The_Dave

Hi Dave,

Can you reference or quote my original reply. If you have a web address we
can try or a sandboxed test case that would be great.

Its been almost a year now that IE8 has RTW and Win7 has also been released
and depending upon your Windows version, there may be differences in
behavior of IE8 versions.

My experience is that MANY issues can be traced to the poor coding of web
pages. Typically a web site may use an <input> tag without an outer <form>
tag or some AJAX enabled web controls may be using event bubbling or
incorrect attribute values (tabindex, for) may be being ignored by the
browser's error correction handling.

The IE8 shortcut keys for history(-1).... Shift+left arrow or Backspace are
documented recommendations from the WGA.

Hint.... what do you call a man in the ocean with no arms. Bob

Some ppl do not have tactile keyboard or mouse access.

My own site works as expected... I use <label
for="theinput"><u>N</u>ame:</label><input name="theinput" tabindex="1"/>
pairs and have validated for accessibility issues. (Use the Total validator
instead of the w3c markup validator for a comprehensive page analysis). You
can use the :select pseudo class to ensure that the contents of an <input>
tag is selected when it has focus.

Yes I too have seen the issue on other web sites (www.ask.com)... they have
incorrectly chosen a strict DTD which will ignore the accessibility
attributes in tags.

Despite your concerns, there is nothing we can do to assist you as we are
not Microsoft employees and the feedback portal for IE8 at connect is no
longer accepting new tickets.<wink>they may be contemplating the next phase
of the SDLC</wink>

Regards.

"undisclosed" wrote in message
news:c49e57cdc6b6ab24c03afae732bb1a0e@nntp-gateway.com...
>
> Really? That's the best you can come up with? I'm guessing you didn't
> actually read my post as you obviously did not grasp what I was saying.
> I'm really at a loss as to how this could be considering I typed each
> word -*_very_*- slowly, one character at a time, so morons such as
> yourself could follow my obvious rationale more easily. But I guess
> you'd actually have to have some vestige of intellect to fathom this.
>
>
> --
> The_Dave
>

"rob^_^" <iecustomizer@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:A5129947-FA6C-4018-8EE9-73964CB653A0@microsoft.com...
> Hi Dave,
>
> Can you reference or quote my original reply. If you have a web address we
> can try or a sandboxed test case that would be great.


What's to test? He's right. However, he is ignoring that it is a user
error which causes a problem. E.g. depending on context the Backspace key
acts as a backspace, or as an alias for Alt-CursorLeft. So, if the user
overlooks what the keyboard context has become in the page, pressing
Backspace *may* cause the browser's previous page to be opened. This might
not be so bad if recovery e.g. pressing Alt-CursorRight would preserve any
changes the user had made to any input areas. The infuriating usability
defect for the unwary is that this causes the page to be refreshed and all
previously unsaved typing to be lost.


Robert
---

Yes,

It depends what on the page has focus. If there are no <input> tags then yes
backspace does history(-1). If an input tag has focus then backspace behaves
normally as one would expect in a input or textarea field.... moves the
caret 1 selection length to the left or right and resets the selection
length to 0. I'll craft a test case for you.

Dave has not posted back, so I suppose he has not further interest in
continuing the bar fight.

Regards.

"Robert Aldwinckle" <robald@techemail.com> wrote in message
news:eIYDDJ2tKHA.928@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> "rob^_^" <iecustomizer@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:A5129947-FA6C-4018-8EE9-73964CB653A0@microsoft.com...
>> Hi Dave,
>>
>> Can you reference or quote my original reply. If you have a web address
>> we
>> can try or a sandboxed test case that would be great.
>
>
> What's to test? He's right. However, he is ignoring that it is a user
> error which causes a problem. E.g. depending on context the Backspace
> key
> acts as a backspace, or as an alias for Alt-CursorLeft. So, if the user
> overlooks what the keyboard context has become in the page, pressing
> Backspace *may* cause the browser's previous page to be opened. This
> might
> not be so bad if recovery e.g. pressing Alt-CursorRight would preserve any
> changes the user had made to any input areas. The infuriating usability
> defect for the unwary is that this causes the page to be refreshed and all
> previously unsaved typing to be lost.
>
>
> Robert
> ---

We had exactly the same problem with the backspace key popping our user
out of a text field when trying to backspace over an entry [i.e. change
date or text] and taking her back to the previous page. I even logged
in on her PC to test if it was a user issue with the site or if it was a
PC issue. It did the same thing under my user at her PC. I then logged
in at my PC and tested. It did NOT do this so I came to the conclusion
it was her PC/browser issue.

I searched the internet for as solution and found this forum and
thought I would also respond with what fixed it for us as there seem to
be a lot of responses on this subject but no 'fix'. Ours turned out to
be a toolbar that had been installed on her PC. As soon as I
uninstalled the toolbar, the problem was immeidately resolved. This was
a consistent problem for her over the past few days and it was
imperative we fixed this issue due to the workload of case notes that
needed to be entered and/or data modified.

It does make it extremely difficult to do your normal work when this
type of issue is occurring. Either we are lucky or something as we have
various operating systems and this was the only PC having the issue
[Windows 7] even though we have other systems running Windows 7. If it
is a Microsoft issue for everyone else, I definately agree it should
never be something you cannot have control over disabling. That would
be very inefficient and frustrating.

Good luck everyone.


--
jimihndrks
Posted via http://www.win7heads.com