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Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

tholman.com

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Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#231

Post by derefr »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #213
derefr wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Apple 101-key keyboard users, who don’t have a “Home” key: try Cmd+Up (and Cmd+Down.) Bonus: also try Ctrl+E (and Ctrl+A) in text fields, or on the command-line. (Both of these carry over to iOS, if you’re curious. I just tested them with the iPad keyboard-folio thing.)

The actual keys are Fn+Left and Fn+End for Home and End (Fn+Up is PageUp, etc). These will also work in Terminal apps or other places that don’t have specific Cmd-Up / Down bindings.

True; but Cmd+Up and Cmd+Down are slightly more universal across the “Apple ecosystem”, given that iOS-specific keyboards don’t have Fn keys, but do support those shortcuts. :)

Interesting aside: the “Globe” key on an iPad keyboard-folio (the one that opens the IME chooser) has some but not all of the properties of an Fn key. Globe+Left and Globe+Right work as PgUp/PgDn, but Globe+Up and Globe+Down do not work as Home/End. (Or maybe they do, but Home/End just aren’t bound in any app I’ve tested? I don’t want to write+deploy an iOS keysym tester just to find this out...)

Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#232

Post by dgb23 »

kabacha wrote: post #32

"back to top" is just such an epitome of how out of touch some modern design is. We had buttons on our keyboards that did this for half a century now. As for phones it should be up to the web-browser to implement it, nobody wants to use your idea of how scrolling should work. My machine already knows how I want to browse my content, don't pretend you know better.

> out of touch

This is ironic. The vast majority of users don't know about most of these functions. They just use their mouse. Even for basic things like:

- navigating & selecting text (words, lines etc.)

- switching between windows

- opening search (like spotlight, if they use it at all...)

- opening & closing windows/tabs, saving files etc.

The list goes on. UI design is not about teaching you how to use a computer. And you certainly cannot expect users to already know.

That said. I think fixed position "back to top" buttons are terrible as well and I would put fixed position header-menus in the same category. They just add clutter and worsen the UX, even for those who almost exclusively use the mouse (as you can simply drag the scroll-bar).

Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#234

Post by [deleted] »

dgb23 wrote: post #232
kabacha wrote: post #32

"back to top" is just such an epitome of how out of touch some modern design is. We had buttons on our keyboards that did this for half a century now. As for phones it should be up to the web-browser to implement it, nobody wants to use your idea of how scrolling should work. My machine already knows how I want to browse my content, don't pretend you know better.

> out of touch This is ironic. The vast majority of users don't know about most of these functions. They just use their mouse. Even for basic things like: - navigating & selecting text (words, lines etc.) - switching between windows - opening search (like spotlight, if they use it at all...) - opening & closing windows/tabs, saving files etc. The list goes on. UI design is not about teaching you how to use a computer…

[deleted]

Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#236

Post by kube-system »

chrisBob wrote: post #180
fnordsensei wrote: post #125

Very good, but it should also be non-functioning 60% of the time due to repairs and/or inspections.

If your elevator is closed 60% of the time for repairs please don’t use it.

I'd rather ride an elevator that is closed 60% of the time for repairs than an elevator that is closed 0% of the time for repairs.

Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#237

Post by jmiskovic »

cool-RR wrote: post #68

The "back to top" functionality is so useful in web pages. I wish they would make a dedicated button on keyboards that just takes you to the top of the page. Better yet, it can work in other apps too! It could, for example, take you to the beginning of a line when you're writing text. Edit: Wow, I thought I was going the extra mile to make the joke obvious by saying the key should also take you to the beginning of a…

On tangent, it's strange that our keyboards mostly stayed the same while the screens got around x20 better.

I often need to make bigger and smaller jumps with keyboard. In Sublime I use a plug-in that can jump 10 lines up and down but I also need that functionality across the rest of OS. For navigating menus, scrolling through content, moving around spreadsheet. Page up/down is too large jump with the amount of content that can fit modern screens.

Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#238

Post by leonardteo »

dgb23 wrote: post #232
kabacha wrote: post #32

"back to top" is just such an epitome of how out of touch some modern design is. We had buttons on our keyboards that did this for half a century now. As for phones it should be up to the web-browser to implement it, nobody wants to use your idea of how scrolling should work. My machine already knows how I want to browse my content, don't pretend you know better.

> out of touch This is ironic. The vast majority of users don't know about most of these functions. They just use their mouse. Even for basic things like: - navigating & selecting text (words, lines etc.) - switching between windows - opening search (like spotlight, if they use it at all...) - opening & closing windows/tabs, saving files etc. The list goes on. UI design is not about teaching you how to use a computer…

True. Whenever I sit and watch people use the computer (just watch when they are giving a presentation/screen sharing), I often cringe.

Many don't use the scroll on their mouse/trackpad - they literally look for the scrollbar, click and drag to scroll.

Many are blissfully unaware that the keys Page Up and Page Down move the page up and down or that Home and End move the whole page to the beginning and the end.

BUT, they do know about the Back button on the browser so they end up resubmitting forms/double posting, etc. lol

Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#239

Post by kevincox »

leonardteo wrote: post #223
kevincox wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this is "thanks to webmail". At least firefox can handle this perfectly fine. That being said seeing the email is nice anyways in case you need to share it with someone or type it into your phone.

To clarify, all browsers CAN handle the mailto link as long as the user configures it to open the correct email client. That’s key because there’s many oblivious users who don’t even know about this setting (we know from the number of support requests we get from users angry that the contact link they created on their websites “don’t work”!). :) Because of the prevalence of webmail like gmail (most of our users are o…

I still don't see how webmail has anything to do with it. In fact opening Gmail prompts me to make it my default mail handler.

Users can fail to configure mailto links to point at their preferred email client irrespective of it being web-based or native. (Unless it is the default for the platform I guess)

Re: Elevator.js – A “back to top” button that behaves like a real elevator

#240

Post by alan_n »

I thought this was going to scroll up to each heading and stop scrolling if you touched the screen. Now that would have been useful. Otherwise I tend to hate scroll to top buttons. I'm always accidentally touching them and usually they won't stop till you're at the top. It's terrible.
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