Hope this is the correct forum.
I have used thickbox js library to display 'popup contact cards' on a private website. which requires the user to login, I chose this as it's far better than using real popup widows, or full windows do display the small amount of info (name, position, and phone number).
However the client has had trouble with some users clicking the browser back button to exit the 'thickbox' screen instead of the 'close' text in the thickbox header bar (or using the esc key as you can in the latest version of Thickbox), clicking the back button sometimes leads to the user being logged out returning them to the 'please login' page.
Does anyone know of any solution I can use to fix this?
I think there's an exceedingly complex bit of scripting you can do, involving iframes and the like - http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/Articles/38/ might point you in the right direction.
But before you get into that, take a step back and consider whether a thickbox is the right answer to the problem. If the user is hitting back, you're obviously giving them the impression that they're going to a new page.
If thickbox is the best way, perhaps you can modify it to work better for the user? Maybe try making the thickbox surround less dark/more transparent, so the user can clearly see the page behind it. Perhaps put the close button in a more obvious position. Make the animation that brings in the thickbox REALLY obvious to the user.
At the end of the day though, using the back button (or hitting the backspace key) is a learned behaviour - it's going to be quite hard to get the user to "unlearn" it.
I get the 'learned behaviour' bit. the thing is that they want these 'contact cards' to be clickable from within news articles etc. so a direct link to a new screen displaying the contact details wouldn't work ether as that would 'interrupt the flow' of the article. And using a regular popup window brings with it all it usual IU drawbacks.
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