This was was cloned from bug 17093 as part of operation convergence.
Originally filed: 2012-05-18 09:35:00 +0000

================================================================================
 #0   contributor@whatwg.org                          2012-05-18 09:35:41 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Specification: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/
Multipage: http://www.whatwg.org/C#opening-the-input-stream
Complete: http://www.whatwg.org/c#opening-the-input-stream

Comment:
Step 25 - we (Opera) would prefer to follow WebKit and not add a new history
position when doing document.open. The utility of this to users is
questionable since many cases where it is used the content of the document
before document.open is not useful (e.g. it is a blank document) and other DOM
operations can be just as destructive, but not create new history positions.
In addition, any page that does document.open onload can leave the user in a
situation where it is hard to navigate back past a given point in history
because every time they load that page, an extra position is created.

Posted from: 2001:4c28:a030:30:219:99ff:fe0e:5501
User agent: Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux x86_64; U; Edition Next; en) Presto/2.10.289 Version/12.00
================================================================================
 #1   James Graham                                    2012-05-18 09:36:21 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** Bug 17091 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
================================================================================
 #2   Ian 'Hixie' Hickson                             2012-05-30 23:12:39 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I did this IIRC because that's what Gecko does. What does IE do? Are any other browsers interested in changing their behaviour?
================================================================================
 #3   Boris Zbarsky                                   2012-05-31 00:28:13 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IE has the same behavior as Opera as far as I can tell.  When doing document.open on an initial about:blank document no SHEntry is added, and when doing it in other cases one is added.  I'll attach a testcase that can be used to test this.

I would be fine with switching Gecko to the current IE/Opera behavior in the medium term (and in fact I have wanted to do so in the past, but it's been stymied by Gecko not having a good concept of "initial about:blank" yet; we're working on that, though).

We got a number of bug reports about not being able to go back and forward across document.open before we implemented our current behavior, iirc, but this was a while ago.
================================================================================
 #4   Boris Zbarsky                                   2012-05-31 00:29:13 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Created attachment 1138 [details]
Testcase
================================================================================
 #5   James Graham                                    2012-05-31 12:05:29 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think our plan was to move more in the direction of WebKit than the current Opera behaviour. But we would be open to arguments that the WebKit  behaviour is more user-hostile than the current Opera behaviour.
================================================================================
 #6   Ian 'Hixie' Hickson                             2012-05-31 17:38:12 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If we change something here, I think it'd be better to change it towards the IE/Opera behaviour described above, where initial about:blank pages force "replaced" to true, and otherwise it's unchanged. Especially in light of comment 3 paragraph 3.
================================================================================