As it is, the browser back button produces some pretty serious issues with the platform. Outsystems pages can rely heavily on their preparations, and preparations don't run with the back button which can lead to outdated displays.
This could lead to a variety of issues, from wasted time using misleading data, all the way to potentially exposing sensitive data through the back stack.
There are ways to force-refresh pages using javascript, but as a low-code platform we aim to minimize the amount of custom javascript in a solution.
The addition of built-in handling to force (or choose to force) pages to refresh with the back button would be a very desirable change.
Changed the category to Frontend
Hi MichaelR,
That is a great idea. In fact we are currently working on the next generation of web applications, where that problem should be already handled for you. You'll have more news about it soon.
Cheers,Tiago Simões
I have a component in the forge that can help.
https://www.outsystems.com/forge/component-overview/2186/timer
There is a webblock in there called "Back Refresh" which will force a page refresh if you navigate to it using the back button. It's just a wrapper around simple javascript.
We've recently released reactive web applications, a new generation of web apps, that has a completely different way of handling navigation. When navigating back, the requests to the server to get data are all done again and the page is refreshed if needed. You can read more about reactive web apps in this forum post.