Safari 6...delete key doesn't go back?

Cinder6 said:

In older versions of Safari, pressing the delete key (outside of a text field) resulted in Safari going back one page. In Safari 6, that functionality seems to be gone.

Anyone know of a way to get it back? I looked in the preferences, but didn't see anything. I also tried making a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences, but it doesn't recognize the delete key as a valid shortcut. I even tried ^H and, while actually hitting ^H makes Safari go back a page, hitting the delete key does not.

I will be very annoyed if there's no fix for this...

Click to expand...

I never knew about this feature but it does not work for me either, i am guessing they disabled it due to the gestures of the trackpad

I've never used the backspace key as "Back" in Safari. I've always used CMD+Left Arrow for "Back"

Looks like Apple are wanting their users to use the gestures. I find them rather clunky and hard to use myself, but I'm getting used to them.

Delete key is a strange keyboard shortcut for going back in a web browser, I believe Apple thought the same way and has removed it completely.

You can use "Command + <" to do it, which makes more sense or swipe from right to left.

If they got rid of this it would be a plus in my view. Delete performs dangerous functions and shouldn't be a part of general browsing just a as a matter of prudence. There's also no converse for delete on the keyboard. The arrow keys make a lot more sense if you're into keyboard usage. Personally, I really like the swipe gestures since they let you not just go back but "peek". For instance if I want to see what someone typed on the previous page I can "peek" at the page without having to actually go to it. Pretty damn sweet.

I haven't gotten much used to browser shortcuts.. But on Mountain Lion you can use :

Command [ - Previous
Command ] - Next

I have not even noticed they'd removed this feature... Ever since I've got Lion installed, I've been using the magic mouse's gesture to go navigate around pages in Safari. I find it much better/quicker with the mouse.
The delete/backspace trick is for win7

Yamcha said:

I haven't gotten much used to browser shortcuts.. But on Mountain Lion you can use :

Command [ - Previous
Command ] - Next

Click to expand...

Command + Left Arrow for Back and Command + Right Arrow for Forward work much better.

Ah yes apple wants us to use gestures and I hear mountain lions keyboard shortcut is a double tap of the fn key
So I ask you. What about all those people out there that dont like your input hardware. I use a Logitech gaming keyboard and a razer mouse. Explain how their great gesture plan works for me

i also was shocked that apple removed this functionality...

browsing become more complicated

i adjusted mouse button 4 as delete on my razer imperator... it was so easy to go back ... now i need to use keyboard again... that is awful!11

MikhailT said:

Delete key is a strange keyboard shortcut for going back in a web browser, I believe Apple thought the same way and has removed it completely.

You can use "Command + <" to do it, which makes more sense or swipe from right to left.

Click to expand...

Backspace (which is what the key really is, not delete) has been the "Back" key on web browsers since Netscape Navigator back in 1995, and possibly on the browsers that preceded it such as Mosaic. Every browser I've used in nearly twenty years on the web has supported it.

If Apple have deliberately removed it I won't be very happy, as hitting that key to go back is instinctive for me now. I'm already regretting installing version 6 because of it.

I neither liked nor used this feature. I'm glad it's gone, as it is far too easy to invoke unintentionally.

wrldwzrd89 said:

I neither liked nor used this feature. I'm glad it's gone, as it is far too easy to invoke unintentionally.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's so obviously in the way when I try to always hit the eject button! So easy to invoke!


Seriously though. I don't get why they find it necessary to add a feature but then remove another one? Is there a limit to the amount of code that can be written for a certain app???

NickFitz said:

Backspace (which is what the key really is, not delete) has been the "Back" key on web browsers since Netscape Navigator back in 1995, and possibly on the browsers that preceded it such as Mosaic. Every browser I've used in nearly twenty years on the web has supported it.

If Apple have deliberately removed it I won't be very happy, as hitting that key to go back is instinctive for me now. I'm already regretting installing version 6 because of it.

Click to expand...

Seriously!

Is this some kind of joke? Removing the backspace shortcut is like taking away the return key to accept a web address you typed in the address bar and replacing it with a gesture. Or replacing the tab key on your keyboard. Is that going to go away in Safari 6.1?

This is a universal and standard keyboard shortcut that is available on literally every browser ever seen. Furthermore there is absolutely no reason why it needed to be removed.

One of the key strengths of OSX was the enormous amount of things you could do via keyboard shortcuts. For years, OSX pros have been running circles around their windows counterparts making new folders, searching files, etc all with keyboard shortcuts. I guess that time has come to an end.

Oh well good thing I have a trackpad on my desktop oh wait...

I hated it. Consider this situation:

You are filling an enormous web form (government agency, etc.) after a few steps, you are filling the last fields. You notice an error and hit delete, but the cursor is already out of the input box... What happens? The browsers goes back, which invalidates your whole session, and you need to start again.

It's a horrible, horrible feature.

It's a bad features only if you're a moron. Do you trip over your own two feet when you walk? That requires about as much thought and coordination as not hitting backspace/delete to go back when the cursor is out of a text field.

Web browsers have been working with this shortcut for 20 years. You know what a worse feature is? Having a user sit down at a Safari browser and not being able to figure out why hitting backspace, like it does on every other browser in existence since the beginning of the web browser as we know it, does not take him back one page.

Ruahrc said:

It's a bad features only if you're a moron. Do you trip over your own two feet when you walk? That requires about as much thought and coordination as not hitting backspace/delete to go back when the cursor is out of a text field.

Web browsers have been working with this shortcut for 20 years. You know what a worse feature is? Having a user sit down at a Safari browser and not being able to figure out why hitting backspace, like it does on every other browser in existence since the beginning of the web browser as we know it, does not take him back one page.

Click to expand...

Fully agreed. Anyone supporting Apple on this is out of his mind, seriously - this has been a standard shortcut for what now, 20 years? I've NEVER had any problems with the backspace key, and even when such an improbable accident happens, you almost always can return exactly to where your text was.

This is a TERRIBLE move by Apple, and the main reason why I rolled back to Safari 5.1.7. Let's hope at least an OPTION for this functionality returns with 10.8.1.

Cinder6 said:

Yeah, this is what I will use, because the keys are close to delete. It still irks me, though, much like Apple's removal of the quarter-step volume change (command+option+volume up/down), which was thankfully added back in 10.7.4.

Click to expand...

The volume change thing really annoyed me too, but with backspace for Safari… I kind of got the impression they only ever added it in the first place because other browsers had it.

To be honest I think it makes sense to get rid of it, as backspace going back doesn't make any sense, plus it has a double meaning since you use it to delete characters in text-fields; it always meant there was a chance that if any element wasn't properly in focus you could end up going back by accident, and potentially losing progress if going forwards isn't able to restore the page.


Thankfully I never really used backspace for forward/back, since my mouse has forward/back buttons tied to command-arrow (left or right).

It was one of the first things I noticed when I was using Safari 6. Although I have been using Chrome for a while so I thought maybe Safari just never did it.

At least on lion, the following works to re-enable this:

defaults write com.apple.Safari com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2BackspaceKeyNavigationEnabled -bool YES

( yes, the key really starts with com.apple.Safari. Go figure )



To undo, replace YES with NO.