How do I mimic the browser Back button using HTML.Action()?

Question

I have an MVC 4 app that contains a View where the user can enter search criteria (in a form) and then displays results in a table below the search form. For each row in the table, the user can click on a link that loads another View that shows him/her details about the item selected.

On this details view, I have a link that takes the user back to the from he/she can from using the following: @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index"). When the user clicks this link and returns to the search form, all the search criteria he/she entered is gone. However, if the user clicks the Back button on the browser, the search criteria is maintained. Is there a way I can call ActionLink that mimics what the Back button is doing? Or maybe JavaScript? I am very new to MVC and JavaScript.

Possible duplicate of [ActionLink back button](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4686124/actionlink-back-button) — rogerdeuce, Dec 14 '15 at 19:28

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 09 '13 at 21:43

4

The easiest way is to use javascript history API:

window.history.back();

here is the fiddle

answered Mar 09 '13 at 21:43

user20140268

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16

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 09 '14 at 22:20

Here a HtmlHelper extension that does the trick.

public static class Helpers
{
    public static MvcHtmlString BackViaHistory(this HtmlHelper helper, string linkText)
    {
        return new MvcHtmlString("<a onclick='javascript: window.history.back();'>" + linkText + "</a>");
    }
}

How do I mimic the browser Back button using HTML.Action()?

2 Answers2