Handling backtracking in Web applications

A common challenge in the development of Web applications today lies in the handling of unforeseen navigation steps initiated by the user through the browser´s back, forward and reload buttons. These operations break the synchrony of dialog states on the server and the client, provoking nonintuitive and possibly destructive application behaviour if not properly handled. We therefore present an approach to handling back and forward navigation that realizes undo/redo semantics and illustrate its implementation using the example of a Web-based conference management system. The presented approach is subsequently discussed with regard to its general applicability and alternative handling semantics.