Pressing the thumb button on my mouse (a logitech cordless mouseman optical) to go 'back' doesn't work in k-meleon. More important (altho' I think it's one and the same) the 'backspace' key doesn't work either. I assume this is just an oversight ... ?
rgds,
rich

Rich,

The backspace key isn't assigned to the back button in K-Meleon. You can do that but Mozilla doesn't differentiate between form fields and other fields when it processing these commands like IE does. I'm not sure if a "bug" has been filed with Mozilla about this.

Andrew

it's actually not mozilla's fault, we intercept the key press before it even gets to mozilla. we just need to find out what has the focus, and if it's a text field, pass it on to mozilla.

(although I still think alt+left is easier)

i think Alt+Left is nice in that it has an intuitively obvious counterpart in the Alt+Right button... i don't think i even know what the 'forward' shortcut is in IE... but every once in a while i wish i did.

alt+left and alt+right work in all major (and most minor) browsers, IE included. The arrow keys are intuitive (imho) because they deal with navigation, while the back button deals with text editing. Using a text editing button for navigation is kinda silly. Not only that, but by overloading a button (giving it two functions: going back, and erasing a character in this case), you add confusion because the user has to guess as to what the browser is going to do when they hit "backspace."

I miss the simple one-tap backing, but I'll live. You might consider making it at least a one-handed operation though... it's kinda cold in my house this winter, and I have to tuck my mousehand under my wing a lot. Sniff.

arual, YOU can make it almost any key (or keys) you want... just change the settings for it under Edit>Preferences>Configs>Accelerators. for instance, you could add the line:

VK_F7 = ID_NAV_BACK
if you don't already have the F7 key tied to anything.

configure! configure! for, verily, the world is yer oyster.

I don't know how small your hands are, but I hit alt+left just fine with 1 hand. (thumb on alt, pinky on left)

OK,
I went into
Edit>Preferences>Menus>Accelerators
and added the line:
VK_BACK = ID_NAV_BACK
(then closed kmeleon and opened it again).
This didn't seem to do anything. ;-(
rich

you'll have to exit k-meleon all_the_way, if you didn't. depending on your set-up, this may involve rebooting (if you have the loader installed).

Luv ya, po.

Yes, the change didn't take effect until I closed the loader in the system tray ... . ;-(
Upon reloading kmeleon, I found the keyboard backspace key now does a 'nav back', but the 'back' mouse button still doesn't work (it does nothing). But worse, the backspace key still performs a 'nav back' even when the focus is a field (as Brian pointed out earlier in this thread). This is unacceptable. <sigh>
rich

I earlier suggested the backspace key perform a 'nav back' because it does that in I.E. and in Windows Explorer (and in 3rd party directory tools) and Logitech seems to think it does that to. I therefore (naively?) assumed this is a windows standard [sic]. If it is, my plea is to impliment it in kmeleon. If it's merely a ms-ism, then ... uh ... screw it, I guess.

In general, I applaud your one key - one function sentiment, but aren't you out on a limb with respect to the backspace key? Aren't; e.g., the esc, tab, and enter keys similarly overloaded? As far as I know, no one seems to mind ... .
rgds,
rich

well generally, in windows, an msism is a standard since they made the OS, they get to dictate whatever kind of wonky interface decisions they want. which is really a shame because MS seems to let their marketers design their UI. (unlike say, apple, who spends millions reasearching what a really good UI actually is).

The other keys aren't really overloaded, escape always halts whatever is happening, and tab is always used to cycle between windows (various objects on the webpage are actually seperate windows). enter always means "I'm finished typing this line". The only other key that's really overloaded would be the space bar. it inserts a space, and also means page down. I really really hate this too. page down should be page down and space should be space; the two should not be confused.

So, what's so unintuitive, inconvenient or awkward about the "right-click"-back shortcut?
Works for me - one hand page nav.

Me again. Did it my own bass-ackwards way. My right ctrl wouldn't cooperate, Bog knows why, right alt was inconvenient for left-handed operation (I'm a rightie, but...) and the F- keys are out of reach when I am dining online with the keyboard shoved back...
So I remapped and made R-CTRL into R-ALT, turned R-ALT into a Windows key (always wanted one) and now I can switch one-handed comfortably.
Nobody was dying to know all this.
Mmmmm, I love K-Meleon.