How do you travel in history?
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In Opera we provided a lot of different ways to go back and forth in history: - You can click the visual arrows. - You can use mouse gestures (two different ways). - You can use CTRL-LEFT and CTRL-RIGHT on the keyboard. - You can use ALT-LEFT and ALT-RIGHT on the keyboard. - If you enable single key keybard shortcuts you can use Z and X. - You can right click the page and select back or forward from the popup menu. So why did we do this (and I am sure there are ways I have forgotten as well)? It is all a realization of the fact that people are different. They have different preferences on how they interact with their computers and they may even have handicaps that make certain ways easier to use than others. Anyway, when I would collect a group of Opera users or employees, I would ask them this question to prove the point.... How do you travel in history? Typically a small group of people would list most all of the options listed above. Well, tell me... How do you travel in history?...
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@jon:
I am sure there are ways I have forgotten as well
- using the dropdown (or popup from a keyboard shortcut) history menus
- dedicated Back and Forward buttons on your mouse or keyboard
… and I believe you could also scroll through history, holding a modifier key and scrolling your scroll wheel. Sorry, I forget which modifier it was.
Since my mouse has Back and Forward buttons, I use them, most often.
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Most of the time I use the mouse-button-flip (”rocker“-) ”gesture“, as it comes most naturally in my opinion.
Second to this on the keyboard I use ”y“ (re-configured from standard ”z“ in both Opera and Opium, since I use a QUERTZ-keyboard) and ”x“.
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When being linear : the visual arrow, being non-linear , the history menu page or panel, then choosing the good page. About the future, I'm still looking for the best way :whistle: .
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Rocker Gestures, most of the time.
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I usually navigate backwards and forwards by clicking on visual arrows, but sometimes I also use rocker gestures.
http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/1284/en/fasterBrowsing.html#rocker -
@jon:
In Opera we provided a lot of different ways to go back and forth in history:
- You can click the visual arrows.
- You can use mouse gestures (two different ways).
- You can use CTRL-LEFT and CTRL-RIGHT on the keyboard. - You can use ALT-LEFT and ALT-RIGHT on the keyboard.
- If you enable single key keybard shortcuts you can use Z and X.
- You can right click the page and select back or forward from the popup menu.
All of the above.
Plus, there is a back button on my mouse.Well, tell me… How do you travel in history?...
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So, I have different personal preferences on different hardware setups and situations:
Windows desktop PC, mouse is available
[ol]- BACKSPACE - most often
- dedicated Back and Forward buttons on a mouse - often
- CTRL-LEFT and CTRL-RIGHT - often
- mouse gestures - rarely
- mouse flips - rarely
- visual arrows clicking with mouse - never back or forward arrow, rarely fast forward, rewind and history dropdown menu on back button
- ALT-LEFT and ALT-RIGHT - never
- single key keybard shortcuts you can use Z and X - never
- back or forward from the context popup menu - never
- dedicated Back and Forward buttons on a keyboard - never
[/ol]
Windows desktop PC, mouse is unavailable (i.e. charging)
[ol]- BACKSPACE - most often
- CTRL-LEFT and CTRL-RIGHT - often
- dedicated Back and Forward buttons on a mouse - unable
- mouse gestures - unable
- mouse flips - unable
- visual arrows clicking with mouse - unable
- ALT-LEFT and ALT-RIGHT - never
- single key keybard shortcuts you can use Z and X - never
- back or forward from the context popup menu - never
- dedicated Back and Forward buttons on a keyboard - never
[/ol]
Windows notebook with 2 buttons trackpad, but no mouse
[ol]- BACKSPACE - most often
- mouse flips - often
- CTRL-LEFT and CTRL-RIGHT - often
- visual arrows clicking with
mousetrackpad - never back or forward arrow, rarely fast forward, rewind and history dropdown menu on back button - dedicated Back and Forward buttons on a mouse - unable
- mouse gestures - unable
- ALT-LEFT and ALT-RIGHT - never
- single key keybard shortcuts you can use Z and X - never
- back or forward from the context popup menu - never
- dedicated Back and Forward buttons on a keyboard - never
[/ol]
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Back and Forward buttons,
by clicking the drop-down arrow on the right side of the address field
but I delete global history each time i close Opera -
I use forward/backward toolbar buttons most of the time, the rest of the time using my forward/backward mouse buttons (though my fingers seem to find them physically a bit awkward). When browsing, I'm a "linear thinker" and have a better mental handle on what I just did a page or several back or forward than caring about what I might have done an hour and many pages before. For the latter, I use bookmarks created if I think I might want to refer back to a page later. I'm a stickler for keeping the browser footprint and trail compact as possible, so I usually switch off history/search 'features' if the browser allows it.
I don't use mouse gestures at all, simply because I cannot abide the occasional inadvertent mouse movements which trigger some action I currently don't want (especially Old Opera's "mouse flips"). I do use the mouse a lot, keeping my hand on it much of the time, but only to access tool/button-bars, tab bar, or a bookmarks bar - many of which in some browsers I can cluster at top/bottom for simpler access for related activities with less typical mouse motion.
Shortcuts are problematic for me, simply because I use a lot of different software apps, some of which have their own species of wired-in shortcuts, and other than "Windows-standard" shortcuts, the overlap of the same shortcut meaning different things in different apps becomes problematic very quickly.
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mouse gesture (classic, not rocker)
RMB+left/right -
To be honest, I use "open in a new tab" (or background tab, or new window) a lot more than the back and forward buttons. Then I flip through the open tabs using the 1 and 2 keys, and Alt+Tab to other windows. Or right-click on the page and scroll with the mouse. I have been using bookmark folders and "Bookmark all open pages" as a history mechanism.. since the original history functionality was broken years ago.
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I almost always use rocker gestures now.
As an aside, I really like Jon's point about users being different and having different preferences in how they interact with their computer. And, with the new Chromium-based Opera, I'm concerned Opera has forgotten this fact.
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Nearly all the time by clicking the visual arrows
And, with the new Chromium-based Opera, I'm concerned Opera has forgotten this fact.
+1 :dry:
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I open the history panel and pick exactly the page I want to view.
If I only want to travel through the history of a tab, i use the rocker gesture because moving the mouse pointer for a movement based mouse gesture is awkward with a trackball - and the buttons are so far away …
PS: I almost forgot, that I use the rewind button quite often too ...
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In a tab, z & x or flip back/forward.
More generically, the history panel or opera:history. NB I don't do that often; if I think I want to return to a page I bookmark it. The history panel is more like an emergency solution.
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Yes, rewind and fast forward, how many of you are using that? I find them very useful at times myself.
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Actually my prefer is generally using rocker gestures. Single keys or backspace is also nice.
Shortly all shortcuts you gave us in Preston was greater and intelligent… -
@jon:
Yes, rewind and fast forward, how many of you are using that? I find them very useful at times myself.
Fast forward is a great feature. I use it all the time. Especially when browsing discussion forums.
I don't think I've ever used rewind.
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@jon:
Yes, rewind and fast forward, how many of you are using that? I find them very useful at times myself.
Fast forward in the automatic way - aka press the space bar to scroll down one screen, repeat until the bottom of the page and then go to the next page, if there is one, all by simply pressing the <space> bar
- or browse through the images of an image folder the same way.
I miss that in every browser apart Opera <15, especially because the space bar is so easy to hit. One of the greatest inventions in terms of usability
Side note: I shamelessly "borrowed" the keywords list for the next page detection in my extension from the fastforward.ini in one of the older Opera versions