Annoyances with the "BACK" button on IE

[Opticreep]

This is one of the things that greatly annoy me about Internet
Explorer:

Sometimes, I'd spend five minutes typing a long message for email, or
google, or a web message board. I hit the "send" button, and voila!
I get the "page cannot be displayed" screen. I don't even understand
why I get that page --- I'm using DSL, and my internet connection is
allegedly active all the time. It's happened so often (maybe 10-15%
of my messages) that I'm getting quite curious to know what is causing
this. Is my connection to the website timing out? What kind of
assinine website will time out your connection if you spend 5 minutes
writing a message?

Anyway, after the "page cannot be displayed" screen, I have no choice
but to hit the "Back" button. And guess what --- the
email/google/message board is blank. Everything I wrote in the past 5
minutes is gone, and I'm annoyed as hell that I have to retype
everything.

Short of maybe activating the "save forms" features of IE, is there
any way to avoid all these problems?

The "Back" button annoys me to no end. Sometimes, I'll press the
"back" button once, and IE will instantaneously switch to the previous
page without loading. I assume it was simply recalling it from cache.
If I was typing a message, then usually the message I wrote would
still be there. But other times, when I press the "back" button once,
and IE will revisit the previous page instead of simply recalling it
from cache. Why does IE behave in such a seemingly arbitrary manner?
A simple press of the "back" button would sometimes reload a page from
the web, other times recall a page from cache? I wish there was a way
to tell IE to recall webpages only from cache whenever I use the
"back" button.

 

[Wayne H. Wilhelm]

This is one of the things that greatly annoy me about Internet
Explorer:

Sometimes, I'd spend five minutes typing a long message for email, or
google, or a web message board. I hit the "send" button, and voila!
I get the "page cannot be displayed" screen. I don't even understand
why I get that page --- I'm using DSL, and my internet connection is
allegedly active all the time. It's happened so often (maybe 10-15%
of my messages) that I'm getting quite curious to know what is causing
this. Is my connection to the website timing out? What kind of
assinine website will time out your connection if you spend 5 minutes
writing a message?

Anyway, after the "page cannot be displayed" screen, I have no choice
but to hit the "Back" button. And guess what --- the
email/google/message board is blank. Everything I wrote in the past 5
minutes is gone, and I'm annoyed as hell that I have to retype
everything.

Short of maybe activating the "save forms" features of IE, is there
any way to avoid all these problems?

The "Back" button annoys me to no end. Sometimes, I'll press the
"back" button once, and IE will instantaneously switch to the previous
page without loading. I assume it was simply recalling it from cache.
If I was typing a message, then usually the message I wrote would
still be there. But other times, when I press the "back" button once,
and IE will revisit the previous page instead of simply recalling it
from cache. Why does IE behave in such a seemingly arbitrary manner?
A simple press of the "back" button would sometimes reload a page from
the web, other times recall a page from cache? I wish there was a way
to tell IE to recall webpages only from cache whenever I use the
"back" button.

Quite a few computers are used for business applications. When dealing with
confidential data, should someone enter data into a form, submit that
information, then walk away from their desk, anyone snooping could walk up
to the PC, hit the "BACK" button a few times, then peruse the confidential
data. I suspect this may be the primary reason why you can't use the back
button to retrieve the form data you've entered.

When I send email to someone via MS Outlook or MS Outlook Express, a copy is
always retained in my Sent Email folder. When submitting data via a form,
the best you can hope for in the manner of a copy of what you submitted is
if you print the form. That frequently isn't sufficient because forms may
contain scrolled view text entry forms. In such a case, printing the form
won't print all of the data (that can be corrected by programmers, but so
far has not).

When entering data into a form, try using "Ctrl+A" and then "Ctrl + C" to
select and copy the contents you've typed into the form prior to clicking on
any "Submit" button. Should the submission fail, you can go back to the
form page, place the insertion point into the text form field and use
"Ctrl+V" to insert the data back into the form (or | Edit | Paste | ).

You don't want to select all of the data on the form. Just the text data
you've typed into a text window. You can paste into one field of a form
window. You cannot paste data into all of the forms various fields as a
global operation. By that I mean, you can't select / copy all of the data
entered into all of the fields at one time.

As to why doesn't the submit button work all the time? Web pages are
primarily designed to send data to you when requested. If the server is
busy, you may end with a page unavailable message. Likewise, if you submit
form data to a webpage server, the server may be busy when you submit the
form. If so, you loose your form data.

Hope this helps,
Wayne H. Wilhlem
Personal web: http://www.quadracalc.com

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Opticreep.

Wayne Wilhelm has given you some excellent information. Maybe I can add a
few points.

"Page cannot be displayed" usually means one of about 3 things. There may
be a problem at the other end; maybe that server had a power failure. Or
there is a problem with the DNS (Domain Name Server - the giant "phone book
in the sky" that converts the web site's URL (www.google.com) to its IP
(64.233.171.104), for example) and your ISP can't find the other website.

Or, if this is a site where you are filling in a form, especially if it is a
secure site accepting confidential information from you, it may have a
time-out feature for your protection (in addition to the no-go-back feature
Wayne mentioned.) If you don't complete the form and press Submit within
the time allowed, you may have to start over and sign in to the site again.

Is my connection to the website timing out? What kind of
assinine website will time out your connection if you spend 5 minutes
writing a message?

One way to solve this kind of problem is to first compose your message
offline, using Notepad, for example. Then sign on to that website, go to
the input page, and Copy'N'Paste your message.

Have you noticed the little down-arrow to the right of the Back label? If
you click that, a drop-down menu should list the last several pages you've
visited. Sometimes you can get back to the latest page by going Back one or
two steps earlier and proceeding ahead from there.

RC