While working on a project recently I noted that ExpressionEngine uses a ‘JavaScript:history.go(-1)’ within the ‘User Message’ templates to allow you to return to the page from whence you came if you submit a form without completing all the required fields, perform a search and return no results etc.

I wanted to ‘do the right thing’ and ‘hacked’ an alternative as documented in this thread on the ExpressionEngine Forums. This hack picked up the referring page URL and passed that to the User Message template instead.

I kept a note of my hack and when I had to upgrade this particular install to the latest point release I set about re-implementing it. At this point Derek Jones helpfully pointed out that I could create an ExpressionEngine Extension to do the same job, negating the need to ‘re-implement’ the hack again and again. Thanks for the prod in the right direction Derek! Here’s my first ExpressionEngine Extension – ‘NoScript Messages’.

Download: ext.noscript_messages.php.zip

Obviously let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts on how this can be improved. Enjoy!