What are the cases when there is no back action available?

From the top of my head only one case, but there may be more.


Showing homecher with no apps open.

I see, in this case, I think we should just not show the back button. I'll talk to Omri about this.

Maybe we could take example on Android for this?

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think Android ever greys out (or hides) the back button even when pressing it won't have any effect?

They do in the newer version of the launcher where there's a single "drag icon" in the bottom toolbar when at the root of the launcher. 

We cannot do that very elegantly in Chrome OS as it would require making the launcher icon move each time.

Yeah, it would be a little strange to start with a new session with just the launcher button, and then as soon as you do something, the back button appears and pushes the launcher button to the side?

So what's the suggestion for this bug? Should we grey out the Back button when it won't do anything? Or just leave things as they are?

 Issue 891162  has been merged into this issue.

Chat with Omri on this, his suggestion is to figure out how this would work with the long-term plans for the shelf.

Also, there's concern with moving the icon that user may not be able to find out the change quickly. Should do a user study with this if we're going with this direction in the vision.

Conclusion is we should hold off on this before we gain more clarity on the vision for shelf.

Thanks Kejia. So I'll close this off for now, it seems like this might be part of a longer term vision for the shelf.