May 17, 2005
A New Use for the 'Backspace' Key
Ed Bott comes through again, with another tip of the day for something simple that I never knew:
Move back to the last page: Your hands are on the keyboard and you want to quickly return to the previous page you were viewing in your browser window. Don’t move your hand to the mouse - just press the Backspace key, which has the same effect as clicking the Back button on your browser’s toolbar. (This tip works in both Internet Explorer and Firefox.)
Much easier than Alt-Left Arrow. Now, if there were an equally simple replacement for Alt-Right Arrow. And a nicer way to move among tabs in Firefox instead of Ctrl-tab, which I find to be a very awkward key combination.
And — my biggest wish at present — if only there were a tool that would let me search inside the text that I am posting to input boxes on web forms before I actually post it.
Posted by Michael : May 17, 2005 08:42 AM | Software | TechnoLinks
Slashdot
It!
You can also move between tabs in Firefox with Ctrl-PageUp/Ctrl-PageDown.
Posted by: TTop at May 17, 2005 10:58 AMI dunno about searching inside text boxes (though i'm sure it's possible) but if you want to create your own shortcuts for firefox, there are plenty of extensions that will let you. can't speak for ie.
Posted by: george at May 17, 2005 11:21 AMGo Go Gadget Notepad!
Posted by: TT at May 17, 2005 11:29 AMAnd on Thinkpads, there's a page-back key, which does the same thing, and is uncomfortably close to the arrow keys. Of course, when composing on a web-page, when you go back to the prior page, you often lose the composed text. I can't tell you the number of times I've lost parts of posts to Typepad. Hmmm... Maybe I'll go file a bug.
Posted by: paperwight at May 17, 2005 11:55 AMI hate that shortcut! Every now and then I'm typing something and my cursor gets out of the text box at just about the time I'm ready to hit backspace. Voila, new (old) webpage.
Posted by: zwichenzug at May 17, 2005 01:15 PMOpera is pretty good for these features. The "1" and "2" keys cycle among tabbed pages, and the find function searches the text you type into search boxes as well. (I think you can even check spelling, but I never use that feature.)
Posted by: Steven at May 17, 2005 01:21 PMCtrl-1 goes to the first tab
Ctrl-2 goes to the 2nd, ctrl-3, the third, etc.