Excuse me for a minor rant, but is anyone else bothered by what I call
the "overloading" of the Android Back key? What I mean by this is that
pressing it can have two vastly different results: it can return you to
an earlier "view" in the app you are using, or it can effectively exit
the app and return to the previous app or home screen.
In the original concept (?) of Android, this can work well. For example,
you have an app with a "View on Map" control. Tap it and you throw out
an Intent that's picked up by Google Maps. When you're done, you press
the Back key and return to the original app. Fine.
However -- and for me this is a big however -- many if not most apps are
a lot more complex and are more in the nature of "standalone" programs.
When running these apps, the Back key is used to back up to previous
viewing states of the app, such as returning from an article to the
table of contents. Trouble is, it's not always obvious or easy to
remember the hierarchy of the app contents, and I don't know how many
times I press the Back key expecting to return to another state of the
app and instead find myself looking at the home screen!
An example: The user runs a weather app and it displays the weather for
her location. She decides to look at the weather in another city and
uses some control to select it. At this point it is easy to assume that
pressing the Back key will return the app to the previous city's data,
but that's not how it works: pressing that key exits the app.
My own app has this situation, and even when using it myself I sometimes
accidentally exit it instead of going "back" to an earlier set of
details. I notice that some apps have put in an "Are you sure you want
to exit?" dialog that helps prevent this, but it would seem it would be
a lot cleaner if this were not necessary.
--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Android Developers" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
