Use Javascript history.go() to the real “previous” page

Question

Assuming we have a history like this:

 - Home
 - Page 1
 - Page 2

JS history.go(-1) works well to go to Page 1... but what if our current history is

 - Home
 - Page 1
 - Page 2
 - Page 2 (2nd time)
 - Page 2 (3rd time)
 - ...
 - Page 2 (nth time)

How can we use JavaScript history object to go back to Page 1 ?

Answer 1

You could create a function that would do a +1 to a property of an object, you could then use this value to go back the right amount of steps

var History = {

    steps : 0

}

somenewpagelink.onclick = function() {

    History.steps = (parseInt(History.steps)+1);

}

Then if you want to go back to page 1, simple create another function:

function goBack() {

    History.go(-History.steps);
    History.steps = 0;

}

When you go back the steps will be reset so when you browse further in your site, it won't go back to many steps.

I do think using jQuery is a good solution but not for small things that can easily be solved with raw Javascript, it will only slow your site down if using jQuery for 1 function.

Furthermore you could add a switch in there that if when you click back to actually go back from page 3 to page 1, you could make it reverse too.

function goBack(r) {

    if (r)
        history.go(History.steps);
    else 
        history.go(-History.steps);
        History.steps = 0;

}

Ofcourse this function would require the tweaking needed to reach the desired effect and be completely flawless, but for the simple implementation you could go with this.

Answer 2

The signature for this method is history.go(number|URL) from (w3school) . So you can use a string parameter instead of number, and if (in some manner) you know which was the url for page2 you can use it.

history.go("http://localhost/page2");

Answer 3

when page is loaded,record now history.length in a js object. when you want back to page1 ,history.go(record-history.length-1)。 I test it work well.but i dont know whether there will be something unsafe or not.