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fibaek
Helper I
Helper I

Simulate Browser Back Button (history-1)

Hello,

Does any of you execellent people have an idea of how to create a back button? My idea is to do somthing like executing a very simpel js function such as history.back(), however I have not found an easy way of doing this. I guess I can do it with a python script, but it seems a bit much importing some js library just to create a back button. Also I'm unsure if that can be executed on demand rather than at runtime. 

The scenario is a report with drill through to another report. I would like an elegant way to get back to the parent report, rather than using the browser back button.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

/Sune

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Hi @fibaek,

The back button is currently the "Power BI way" that users have to navigate back after cross-report drillthrough.

You can't simulate the window.history.back() operation via JS as R/Python/custom visuals are sandboxed from the main window, so calling that in any of these places will only invoke it on an embedded iframe with no history of its own (basically doing nothing for the end-user). I've tried this previously and just tried it again just to be sure it still doesn't work... it doesn't.

For consistency purposes, I would suggest that this is more of a feature request for cross-report drillthrough in that if a report is invoked via drillthrough then it should detect this and display a button, similar to drillthrough within a report. I just looked and there's already an idea created for it that you can add a vote to (I've added mine).

Regards,

Daniel





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4 REPLIES 4
lbendlin
Super User
Super User

That smells like bad UX.  Are you sure your users will understand this?

Yes, I believe the users will understand it. All other navigation in the report is handled with buttons, so using the browser back button will be counter-intuitive for the users. The UXers are also completely in line with this. And so are the users, who I have spoken with about it. 

Why do you consider this bad UX?

Hi @fibaek,

The back button is currently the "Power BI way" that users have to navigate back after cross-report drillthrough.

You can't simulate the window.history.back() operation via JS as R/Python/custom visuals are sandboxed from the main window, so calling that in any of these places will only invoke it on an embedded iframe with no history of its own (basically doing nothing for the end-user). I've tried this previously and just tried it again just to be sure it still doesn't work... it doesn't.

For consistency purposes, I would suggest that this is more of a feature request for cross-report drillthrough in that if a report is invoked via drillthrough then it should detect this and display a button, similar to drillthrough within a report. I just looked and there's already an idea created for it that you can add a vote to (I've added mine).

Regards,

Daniel





Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution!

Proud to be a Super User!


On how to ask a technical question, if you really want an answer (courtesy of SQLBI)




Hi,

 

Thanks for a very elaborate answer and sorry for not getting back to you with a decent reply. I definately voted for the idea as well. It would be a very nice addition.

 

/Sune

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