random neuron misfires

If anyone uses pinterest.com on a regular basis, you might noticed they recently changed their interface for the first time in just about a decade.

Previously, when you clicked on any image, it would highlight the image and allow you to “Visit Site” if it was linked from that image. Hitting [Esc] would then bring you back to the previous page, the page you came from before you clicked on the image.

Now they’ve update the UI and made it so you need to mouse over the image, and click a back arrow button to go back to the previous page. This is unnecessary and annoying, and breaks common web paradigms.

So I fixed it, with a simple ViolentMonkey/Greasemonkey browser add-on:

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Pinterest: Escape ? Back
// @namespace    https://pinterest.com/
// @version      1.0
// @description  Press Esc on Pinterest to go back in history
// @match        https://*.pinterest.com/*
// @match        http://*.pinterest.com/*
// @grant        none
// @run-at       document-end
// ==/UserScript==
(function() {
    'use strict';

    document.addEventListener('keydown', function(event) {
        if (event.key === 'Escape' && !event.defaultPrevented) {
            history.back();
        }
    });
})();

This now works as expected, and you don’t need to have your hand on the mouse or mouse around to find that back button.

Sometimes the simplest of solutions is all that’s required.