How can I return the number of history states available

Question

I am using Ben Luptons's History.js in an iPad web app. When in full screen app mode I have a back button that when tapped calls History.back();

That works fine, unless you have run out of states to go back to. Essentially, on initial load, or if you hit back enough times to return to the original page that loaded.

I need to return the number of states available and only go back if there is one available. For example:

if( pagesAvailable > 0 )
    History.back();

I hope that makes sense and someone can offer some help

Thanks,

Will

Check this out, the correct answer is what you want: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3588315/how-to-check-if-the-user-can-go-back-in-browser-history-or-not — PRNDL Development Studios, Aug 14 '12 at 16:42

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 14 '12 at 16:42

1

window.history.length returns the number of entries in the history object, according to MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/Manipulating_the_browser_history

However, this appears to be unreliable as mentioned in the question @PRNDL linked to.

answered Aug 14 '12 at 16:42

jackwanders

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Brilliant, thanks. The app I'm building is (for now) iPad only, so I can deal with that. – will Aug 15 '12 at 09:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 14 '12 at 16:43

0

You could try checking the referrer?

if (document.referrer == "") {
    window.close()
} else {
    history.back()
}

answered Aug 14 '12 at 16:43

PRNDL Development Studios

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How can I return the number of history states available

2 Answers2