[RFC] Proposed change to EWW history navigation

[RFC] Proposed change to EWW history navigation

[Jim Porter]

Over in bug#69232[1], I've posted a patch to change how history 
navigation in EWW works (read: when you go back/forward). Currently, 
every time you go back or forward, it adds the current page to the end 
of the history, even when that page is already *in* the history. This 
means that if you navigate back to a previous page, and then forwards 
again, it will keep adding duplicate pages to the history. This means 
you can never reach the "end" of your history this way. (You can see 
full steps to reproduce this over at the bug.)

In my mind, this behavior isn't useful and is likely just a bug, so I've 
changed it in my patch to be more consistent with other browsers. 
However, since history navigation is a pretty fundamental thing (and EWW 
has had this behavior for a long time), I want to be sure no one is 
relying on the current behavior. So...

Is there anyone reading who prefers the current behavior? If so, could 
you let me know what you use it for? Depending on people's answers, we 
could leave my patch as-is, add a user option to restore the old 
behavior, or even add separate new features to meet people's needs.

[1] https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=69232

Re: [RFC] Proposed change to EWW history navigation

[James Thomas]

Jim Porter wrote:

> Over in bug#69232[1], I've posted a patch to change how history
> navigation in EWW works (read: when you go back/forward). Currently,
> every time you go back or forward, it adds the current page to the end
> of the history, even when that page is already *in* the history. This
> means that if you navigate back to a previous page, and then forwards
> again, it will keep adding duplicate pages to the history. This means
> you can never reach the "end" of your history this way. (You can see
> full steps to reproduce this over at the bug.)
>
> In my mind, this behavior isn't useful and is likely just a bug, so
> I've changed it in my patch to be more consistent with other browsers.
> However, since history navigation is a pretty fundamental thing (and
> EWW has had this behavior for a long time), I want to be sure no one
> is relying on the current behavior. So...
>
> Is there anyone reading who prefers the current behavior? If so, could
> you let me know what you use it for? Depending on people's answers, we
> could leave my patch as-is, add a user option to restore the old
> behavior, or even add separate new features to meet people's needs.
>
> [1] https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=69232

Just wanna say that I'm in favour of this, and 'thank you'.

The patch seems to work just fine.

--
James

Re: [RFC] Proposed change to EWW history navigation

[Jim Porter]

On 2/19/2024 12:04 PM, Jim Porter wrote:
> Over in bug#69232[1], I've posted a patch to change how history 
> navigation in EWW works (read: when you go back/forward).
[snip]> [1] https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=69232

I've updated this patch to be more like other browsers: now, when 
navigating to a brand-new page from a historical one, EWW clears the 
"future history" after that historical page. If you're familiar with how 
most web browsers like Firefox and Chrome work, this is exactly the same.

As before, if this would cause problems for any EWW users, let me know, 
and I'll try to accommodate your use cases in my patch.