Details
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Bug
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Status: Closed
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Critical
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Resolution: Fixed
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1.6.1
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None
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VS.NET 2010 and WP7.1 emulator
Description
I tried submitting my PG 1.5 app to the Windows Marketplace and it was rejected due to WP7's requirements for the Back Button. I upgraded to PG 1.6.1 and I am inspecting how it works with the hardware back button. It seems to work much better, but my app is designed so that it has a soft back button in the app in various places, and on WP7 the user can always tap the hardware back button. I am trying to use navigator.app.historyBack and it appears to work, but it does something slightly different than actually tapping the hardware back button does. I have also tried using window.history.back and that works different yet. I am using JQueryMobile 1.1.0 and so I wind up doing quite a lot of $.mobile.changePage calls to #Page id's, and because I use multiple .html files I also need to do some rel="external" links or window.location.href= calls. I think my needs are similar or the same as those of other WP7 developers. Here is what currently happens with PG 1.6.1 in a simple Page1/Page2 JQueryMobile app when using the hardware back button versus using navigator.app.historyBack, vs. window.history.back:
SCENARIO #1 - using hardware BackButton only
Page 1 links to Page 2 using $.mobile.changePage("#Page2");
BackButton tap - goes back to Page1 but page is requested again and reloaded from scratch which is slow and the user loses any form data they had entered.
BackButton tap - exits app (great!)
SCENARIO #2 - hardware BackButton and navigator.app.backHistory
Page 1 links to Page 2 using $.mobile.changePage("#Page2");
navigator.app.backHistory(); goes back to Page1 served from cache, which is fast and form data is preserved.
BackButton tap: nothing happens
BackButton tap: Page1 is reloaded from scratch
BackButton tap: exits app
SCENARIO #3 - hardware backButton and window.history.back
Page 1 links to Page 2 using $.mobile.changePage("#Page2");
window.history.back(); goes back to Page1 served from cache.
BackButton tap: Page1 is reloaded from scratch (DOH!)
BackButton tap: exits app
My Observations:
1) The hardware back button does not use the cached page - it reloads/re-requests the page. This is kind of a drag but I think we have to just go with this because it is the behavior that the Marketplace testers will be expecting and validating.
2) window.history.back() is giving better results than navigator.app.backHistory, but still not the same as the hardware back button. I think apps will fail Marketplace certification if they use either of these approaches for soft back buttons.
3) When going back to an external page (as opposed to a JQueryMobile #pageID), window.history.back works but navigator.app.backHistory does not seem to do anything at all. I say window.history.back "works" but it is still the same result as in Scenario #3 above, which is not good.