How to Detect Browser Back Button event - Cross Browser

Question

How do you definitively detect whether or not the user has pressed the back button in the browser?

How do you enforce the use of an in-page back button inside a sin

Answer 1

Here's my take at it. The assumption is, when the URL changes but there has no click within the document detected, it's a browser back (yes, or forward). A users click is reset after 2 seconds to make this work on pages that load content via Ajax:

(function(window, $) {
  var anyClick, consoleLog, debug, delay;
  delay = function(sec, func) {
    return setTimeout(func, sec * 1000);
  };
  debug = true;
  anyClick = false;
  consoleLog = function(type, message) {
    if (debug) {
      return console[type](message);
    }
  };
  $(window.document).click(function() {
    anyClick = true;
    consoleLog("info", "clicked");
    return delay(2, function() {
      consoleLog("info", "reset click state");
      return anyClick = false;
    });
  });
  return window.addEventListener("popstate", function(e) {
    if (anyClick !== true) {
      consoleLog("info", "Back clicked");
      return window.dataLayer.push({
        event: 'analyticsEvent',
        eventCategory: 'test',
        eventAction: 'test'
      });
    }
  });
})(window, jQuery);