Re: Ajax Back/Forward History problem document state by document.save()

> My 2 cents are in two words "semantic web". Now I'm not an expert on that field
> (far from it) but I assume that those buttons could well be a good way for
> browsers vendors and/or web application designers to specify where they want
> the user to go when he or she hits those buttons. Afterall why not
> "controlling" also what the user can experience that way?

I like the concept of using the browser interface to interact with web
application is a customised way. But I dislike the idea of web
developers being about to "control" my user experience. As a user I
want to be the one in control, and I think that's pretty normal. I'm
also afraid of what might happen with that kind of control in the
wrong hands.

> A website could well contain tags saying "in case the user presses the forward
> button, offers him a set of destination that could fit the same interests".

Check out the the different Link types, especially next and prev:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#h-6.12

Opera will already work with these to some degree. If you are on a
page with a link tag with the rel attribute set to next, you can
actually use the forward mouse gesture to go to that page, even though
you've never visited it before. (The forward button is still disabled,
only the mouse gester works).

I tend to think as far as Web Application go, developers should be
discouraged from trying to use the back/forward buttons to save the
state of the application. If it's just a one page application, the
back button should move you to the page BEFORE the application. If you
have several "sections" to a web application, they should be treated
as several separate pages. The idea of using the DOM and Ajax to
re-build section one of an application to look like section two
without loaded a separate page seems like using Ajax for the sake of
Ajax.

Kenny

Received on Tuesday, 22 November 2005 00:28:29 UTC