Computer: Browsing: Navigation
Multiverse 'Back' Button   (+3)  [vote for, against]
Not as sci-fi as the title sounds, unfortunately.

Sometimes I want to go back a step in my browser window in time, to undo a command I sent, like going backwards in time. Other times I just want to revert to the prior window without undoing that command. Sadly, my time-travel license was confiscated after a horse race betting incident that totally was the fault of Sturton and an alternate me that doesn't even belong to any existing timeline anymore. WIBNI there were both options available?
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 01 2021

Undo the last 5 minutes Undo_20The_20Last_205_20Minutes
[theircompetitor, Jul 01 2021]

If I follow-- the idea is a "display back" button separate from the "back" button. The "display back" button reverts the display to show the previous window, tab, or display configuration.

I would like this for CAD drafting-- to undo a change to the view state without undoing the recent design changes. This would be very useful.
-- sninctown, Jul 01 2021


No. If you hit the 'back-undo' button, I presume it would untoss them...

At work I am doomed to work in Oracle through a browser interface. Sometimes I want to just go back and see the contents of a prior screen, while other times I want to traverse to a prior link but with my commands on the current screen enacted.
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 01 2021


Yes

Also if jumping back and forward (undo redo or whatever) should continue to branch the multiverse, so that you can revert to any branch of the tree.
-- pocmloc, Jul 01 2021


I think having computers keep tabs of an entire tree and command history therein and all possibilities of command branches from there would cause a ginormous system problem with databases not knowing what entities were valid and what weren't.
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 01 2021


I have an idea like this, searching... Hmm not exactly the same, linked...
-- theircompetitor, Jul 01 2021


[RayfordSteele]; is there a way to "live record" a video stream of your screen? Perhaps playback could be on another screen, able to rewind & pause (my TV can do this for broadcast; I keep meaning to try it with other inputs...).
-- neutrinos_shadow, Jul 01 2021


Nope. That would be a bad bad no no where I work.
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 01 2021


//doomed to work in Oracle through a browser interface//

Just to clarify, do you mean you're working in an application built using Oracle Forms, or writing queries against an Oracle database, or what?
-- pertinax, Jul 01 2021


Option 2: do a screengrab every time you go to a new page. It will just sit un-used in your clipboard; unless you need it then you paste it into Paint (or whatever). (I have done this.)
-- neutrinos_shadow, Jul 02 2021


Yeah I could dump screengrabs into OneNote, which I sometimes do. But usually in the course of searching around, it's not predictable which I'll need later.

We use several methods of interfacing with Oracle. Forms, Product Manager, and a web-based front end. While I despise the forms UI, it's at least fairly stable, while the web-hyperlink based UI is anything but. Navigate anywhere and the data entry page you're on crashes out with a "stale data error."
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 02 2021


<Imagines a special history tab containg each tab's commands and links as a sphere tag cloud on a vector path of time>

Surely the computer could precis, form a wider dictionary, of the browser history. The numbers of actions are not that many. The record of 176 Words/minute equals 105 thousnad words in a ten hour day. 2 to the power of 17 records.

To undo posting a letter , a next day buffer is also needed . So it does depend on if the action is reversable or not.
-- wjt, Jul 11 2021


But there are also alternative actions the computer could present that could alter data on the network in other ways, providing an ever-widening tree that conflicts with other users potential choices.

This is afterall a shared database.
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 11 2021


Stiil have to choose the right alternative, take the right action or it becomes ground hog day while still loosing ground.

And very annoying the network users with transient data that can't be relied on.
-- wjt, Jul 17 2021



random, halfbakery