The browser's Back and Forward buttons

In WorkOS you can use your browser's Back and Forward buttons (or the trackpad swipe, or your mouse's side buttons) to move between the screens you've visited, just like on any other website. The address of the page doesn't change as you move around, but the app keeps track of where you've been.

What it remembers

It remembers the page, not every detail of what you do inside it:

Sections. If you go from Home to Tasks and then to Notes, Back takes you to Tasks and then to Home again; Forward goes the other way.
Open records. When you open a full record (an Inbox message, a meeting, a project, a note, a Wiki article, a contact, a company or a document), Back closes it and returns to the list, and Forward opens it again.
A task's record. It opens in a side panel: with that panel open, Back only closes it and leaves you where you were.

It does not remember a record's inner tabs (for example, switching from "Content" to "Attachments" inside a project), nor filters or searches with Back and Forward. And when you enter a section from the menu, it always starts at its natural position (no filters or search). The Kairos assistant and the Publications article editor don't count as a screen either.

If you close a record with its own "back" arrow, no "dead" step is left behind: the next Back takes you straight to the previous screen.

If you have unsaved changes

While you're editing a record's content (the body of a note, a document, a Wiki article, a project, a contact or a company; a task's content; or a Publications article), Back won't take you off the screen without warning you. A dialog opens with three options:

Keep editing — you stay where you were, with your text intact.
Discard changes — the editor closes without saving and the move back is completed.
Save changes — the content is saved and, if all goes well, you continue back. If saving fails, you stay in the editor and are told, so you don't lose anything.

Important: the dialog appears whenever the content editor is open, even if you haven't typed anything yet.

What it doesn't cover

Side panels and pop-up windows (for example, "New task" or a picker) are not closed by Back: if you press Back with one open, the screen changes behind it. Close them first with their own button.
When you return to a record with Forward, it loads again from scratch, as if you opened it again from the list.
Reloading the page (F5) leaves you in the same section and, if a record was open, opens it again.

If you'd rather turn it off

It's on in every browser. If for any reason you'd rather Back and Forward do nothing inside WorkOS, add ?nav=0 to the end of the app's address and press Enter: it's turned off in that browser and remembered. To turn it back on, visit once with ?nav=1.

Tip: the installed mobile app has no address bar, so you normally don't need to do anything: inside WorkOS, use the "back" arrow in the header, which keeps working as before.