IE8

[Encino Man]

In IE8 I've been having this issue where you hit the 'backspace' key and you end up navigating back a page. I understand that this is actually a hotkey - backspace navigates you back a page if the cursor is not focused on a text field. This is happening to me when I'm in a text field - both here and on facebook. You end up losing everything you wrote. I googled for a solution and all the info out there is for website developers - java script that disables the hotkey functionality on a specific website that the inquiring user maintains and not a website like this or facebook.

Any thoughts? And don't say firefox. I have firefox and I find it just a shade too annoying to use regularly.

[random axe]

I googled for a solution

It's Internet Exploder.  It's not going to be good.  If you hate Firefox, try Opera, I guess.  None of them are perfect, but IE is by far the most annoying, for my money.

And since they claim that it adheres to web standards more closely than ever, there's less reason than ever to bother using it.  The only reason I use it is for non-standard websites written to cater to IE . . . .

[stormneedle]

I remember that for accessibility reasons you can use a style sheet in IE7 that applies before the site's sheets do, and make some changes with that. If that's still there for IE8, and if you can get JavaScript into a style sheet (gah, it's been a while- I don't know offhand), you could create a CSS file that would alter the behaviour globally.

[PVC Barbie]

Firefox does the same thing. It especially likes to do it after I've written a large amount of text without saving it. Once, I almost deleted the entire computer over it.

[ivan]

In both Firefox and Opera, the backspace key is the default shortcut key for navigating back, but that function can be disabled. In IE, it can't. Just amazing. The entirety of the object-oriented worldview runs contrary to hard-wiring functionality like that. I think over in Redmond all the rosy-cheeked hotshots are busy with Windows, while the IE project is fobbed off on decrepit rehabilitated FORTRAN coders.

I've been using Opera for about a year now, mostly happily. As random axe points out, each browser has its flaws. Opera's main drawback is that it is even less compatible with IE-oriented sites than Firefox. And if anything, Opera has more geegaws, although one or two of them are kind of nifty. But both Opera and Firefox can be customized to run in a no-nonsense stripped-down mode.

I stopped using Firefox because it was impossibly slow on some sites, I'm guessing because of how ads are blocked. I still think that of the three, Firefox is the most secure, although that is a belief based on some kind of mystical gnosticism rather than any actual evidence.

[random axe]

 :|  Yeah, I been there.

The ThinkPads have these Page Forward / Page Backward keys right in with the cursor keys.  They SUCK.  Way too easy to hit accidentally.

I tried disabling them with the disable-a-key utility, but it only works temporarily, and then I get used to hitting them without a penalty.  Unhelpful.

The 'NavPad' trackpad's ungodly Tapping feature on this ThinkPad also turns itself back on at a random interval after you set it to Off.  And the sensitivity for Tapping is always ultra-maximum, so that the slightest brush of your hand (or, you know, trying to use the trackpad normally) teleports the cursor across the screen and/or selects whatever the cursor happened to be over.  I keep meaning to go look for another driver upgrade for that, but I'm still fighting with the video upgrade drivers.

I used to always compose a BC or other message board post in InfoSelect, at the top of my sig database (remember that? heh heh), and then Cut'n'Paste it.  That was a lot safer.  I guess I was smarter back then.

[random axe]

I think over in Redmond all the rosy-cheeked hotshots are busy with Windows

  And with such impressive results.

I think something like this is, indeed, why so many MS apps and 'features' are horrendous afterthought abortions, though.  They're always ferrying their best and brightest off to some kind of crap project that has zazz but isn't actually useful, while the scrubs get sent to hammer at twelve million lines of spaghetti-logic code that's 75% legacy cowpats.

[Encino Man]

Opening a new tab in IE8 with google set as my home page and the cursor won't default to being in the search box. There are lots of tips out there if you have this issue with Chrome or Firefox but none for IE8. When google is the first tab the cursor defaults to the search field, but not on subsequent tabs. Any ideas?

[mo]

I haven't used IE8 much, but I know that when I disallowed Google from running scripts with NoScript in Firefox that the cursor does not appear in the box - you have to click in the box or tab for it to appear.

[Lindsey Buckinghmof]

I keep reading this as 1E8 and thinking, damn, I'm up to 100 million posts? WHORE.

[random axe]

One of the really useful things about Opera was that the A and Q keys cycled forward and backward through the links on the page, and the Tab key jumped through form fields.  So even with JavaScript off, you go to Google, say, hit Tab once, and the cursor's in the box.  Equally good on any page where you're going to be logging in or using a search feature, and often far, far faster than using the mouse.  Firefox, et al, treating links and form fields as the same thing is nothing like as handy.

Unfortunately, in the more recent versions of Opera, those features don't work properly anymore.  Still better than in Firefox or IE, but nowhere near as good as they used to be.  So it goes.

[random axe]

Is it possible for me to describe how much I hate Internet Explorer's instant Search function?  I don't think it is.

Really, do you think it is THAT convenient for it to search while I'm still typing?  Even though inevitably this means it will perform preliminary searches that are wrong while I'm still trying to tell it what to search for?  Even though many websites have so much crap on one page that this means your piece of shit browser will choke up and not be able to both perform the search and let me type at the same time?

Pure amateur crap.  A triumph of stupid bandwagon 'flash' over actual useful function.  And they don't even let you turn it off.  MS, you have to learn to walk before you can run headfirst into a wall of shit.

[random axe]

You know what really annoys me about it?  Opera offers the following searches, which all work perfectly:

- Instantly find all instances.  One-key command, finds and highlights the text as you type, brilliantly fast even on really long webpages.

- Instantly find all instances in hotlink text.  Same as above (but different key).

- Search dialog box, which doesn't search until you tell it to.

- One-key Find Next Instance.

It may have other search options I don't know about.  And it has hotkeys to jump to next / previous hotlink, plus (until the latest version) first / last field.

[Hisey]

No love for Chrome here?

[Lindsey Buckinghmof]

I tried it, and it really didn't work for me. Not sure why