Regular readers of MFIF -> FTM are aware that both jchuzi and artie505 are/were avid proponents of Safari's SnapBack feature. I'm wondering how widespread their unhappiness over the demise of this feature is. My radar certainly hasn't picked much reaction in the wider Mac community, but artie's assessment that "I don't see any way it was because of lack of interest" piqued my curiosity.

Just to be sure, "Officer Kruptke" can only vote once, right?

I used Snapback in the address line in Safari 3 but to tell the truth I didn't notice its absence in Safari 4 until Jon and Artie complained of its disappearance. If offered the choice of Snapback and Reload in the address bar I would probably choose reload.

On the other hand, don't touch the reload arrow in the Google search bar.

Those choices aren't mutually exclusive. For example:

User A could find snapback theoretically useful, but never use it because the hypothetical situation where it might be useful never came up. Should this user answer "Useful, but I can live without it" or "Rarely used it"?

User B could know what page snapback is, but wonder why anyone would ever want to use it. (Just like I know that Pages has a "Full Screen" feature, yet have no idea why anyone would want to use that.) This user can't answer "What's that?", because he (well, I) know what it is, but I only used it once, and that only because I try almost every new feature once. I guess "once" counts as "rarely", but my heart wants to do with "What's that (for)?"

In all the scenarios I come up with for why it might be useful, it's always to snap back to a Google search page (which feature is still there), or back to the home page of a site I already have bookmarked (which still works), or in a pinch to a page that's still in my history (which still works). Or I just hit the back button a few times.

And in any event I had to know, before leaving the page, that I would want to snap back to it. In that case, I'd just open the new page in a new window (or tab), and then "snap back" using the Window menu.

What exactly could you do with page snap back that you can't still do just as easily?

Well, as you know, the science that underlies any decent poll is generally absent on the internet, and this poll is no exception. The choices are an entirely arbitrary division of reality, the sample is minuscule and unrepresentative of Mac users as a whole, and the poll's author has a horse in the race.

That said, it's not surprising to me that the clear majority of responders weren't SnapBack users; I suspect that, like me, folks who developed techniques for opening links in new tabs before SnapBack existed saw no need for it.

Among other things, it didn't exist on other browsers; those of us who habitually make use of multiple browsers and prefer, insofar as possible, to utilize a single, universal set of interface behaviors across them, are disinclined to embrace features which require paying attention to which browser we're in at the moment.

This is why it bugs me so much that Safari's Stop/Reload button must now reside at the right end of the address bar: in every other browser I've used over the past five years, I've grouped all the navigation-related buttons to the left of the address bar.

I never used Safari 4 until it came out of beta. Is that why I'm unaware of SnapBack? If you click and hold on the back arrow of any tab, Safari shows the history of that page and you can "snap back" to any point you like. That seems a pretty good trick to me. Was SnapBack a keystroke?

> Was SnapBack a keystroke?

Read me!

Hmmm...

1. I'm kinda surprised by the size of the "What the heck is it?" contingent.

2. It's quite obvious that "keyboard-centricity/mouse-phobia" is not a widespread phenomenon. (Lousy hand-eye coordination is *not* a blessing as respects either computing or shooting pool.)

3. I may be up the creek without a keystroke.

See this tip and this related tip.

I've seen that, thanks, but there are two things wrong with it:

1. It puts Reload—a general navigational control—into the Bookmarks bar.
2. It fails to address the location of the Stop button.

As I was reading your post, I couldn't believe that I had not written it myself!

The limitations of these informal polls seem to always leave me wanting another choice. But then, I realize that they are quick, unscientific attempts to judge the popularity of one thing or another, and I either decline or go with my gut on the closest response available.

I have Safari 4.0.3. I tried the snap back feature on Google Search and I'm sold. It's very handy. Too bad it's not in the URL window, too.

> I have Safari 4.0.3. I tried the snap back feature on Google Search and I'm sold. It's very handy. Too bad it's not in the URL window, too.

Thanks, compatriot!