changing the links to and from the cart ("continue shopping")

[fsas]

Is it possible to
(1) add a product to the cart without being linked to that cart?
or
(2) perhaps to redefine the "continue shopping" to link to the previous page instead of the homepage?

(1) To state it otherwise: can the user buy a product without leaving the page he/she is? My webshop will contain thousands of very cheap products and it is inconvenient for a buyer to try and find his position back eacht time a new product is added. There is no need to see the cart every time...

It would be even nicer if there would be a change of button after clicking ("added to cart" or something like that) but that would not be necessary of course.

Is there some way to achieve this via admin (I looked everywhere but could not find it) or perhaps via changing of some code? (which should not be very complicated, since I am a beginner)

(2) another way could be that the user does go to the cart every time he/she buys a product, but that the "continue shopping" does not bring him back to the home page but to the previous location. Is there a way to redefine the "continue shopping" button?

I have seen some code somewhere in this forum but that didn't seem to work (or I did something wrong: which is quite probable since I am still a beginner, but learning...)

any help would be appreciated much, since I am already searching and looking around for quite a while..

thanks

[fsas]

(sorry, forgot forum notification for previous message..)