Back to Previous Button

What it does

A button that takes the visitor back to wherever they came from, using the browser's own history rather than a fixed link.

So on a product page reached from a category listing, it returns to that listing — scrolled to where they were. A hardcoded link can't do that.

Controls

11 controls, 3 of which only appear when they are relevant.

Working through the panel

The fallback

There's one control that matters more than all the styling, and it's Fallback.

If someone opens the page directly — from a search result, a shared link, a new tab — there is no history to go back to. Without a fallback the button does nothing, which looks broken.

Set it to the page they should have come from. The category listing, the blog index, the parent page. Then the button always works, whichever way the visitor arrived.

Icon and label

Icon is on by default, with arrow or chevron and a size control.

Label is empty, and adding text widens the button into a pill and reveals a font control.

On a detail page a label is usually worth it — Back on its own is fine, but naming the destination is better. Back to projects tells the visitor where they're going before they commit.

Styling

Background and text colour, padding, radius and a shadow.

If you're also using Back to Top on the same site, style the two identically. They're both floating navigation controls, and matching them makes the site feel considered — while two differently shaped floating buttons look like two different plugins.

Performance and limits

• Static rendering is handled, so canvas thumbnails and exports show a settled frame rather than a blank box.