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Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

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Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#11

Post by aptgetrekt »

dashwav wrote: post #5
dpcx wrote: post #2

As someone who prefers Natural Scroll (and who understands that there are people who don't), why would someone want Natural Scroll on one interaction method and not on another? That feels like confusion waiting to happen, IMHO.

I have been looking for a solution to this problem for a very long time and my reasoning is that on a trackpad, natural makes a lot of sense intuitively, since you are "pushing" the document (page/app/whatever) the direction you want it to move. Whereas when I am using a mouse I feel like I the document is below the mouse more or less and when I move the scrollwheel it is physically moving the document as if it was t…

Yeah I think the exact same way! The top of the physical wheel spins the opposite direction of the bottom of the wheel which would be "touching" the page/content. Originally I was going to just make a background script to automatically toggle the option when it detects certain USB devices (like my mouse) but I couldn't find a way to apply settings changed via the "defaults write" command without logging out and then back in. In my research I came across discrete-scroll and scroll reverser on GitHub. Discrete-scroll worked in Catalina but had no GUI, and Scroll Reverser didn't work reliably on Catalina. So I combined the ideas from both in as little Swift code as possible so that anyone using my app wouldn't need to worry about allowing the app to "control your computer".

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#12

Post by aptgetrekt »

muli_d wrote: post #9

Thank you. I've been using Scroll Reverser[1], but it hasn't been updated to fully support Catalina (it works, but the installation process was not updated to request the permissions in Catalina). I'll check out UnnaturalScrollWheels to see if it's a good replacement. [1] https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

You're welcome! Scroll Reverser no longer working well in Catalina is one of the main reasons that led me to create my own solution to the problem.

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#13

Post by joshgachnang »

muli_d wrote: post #9

Thank you. I've been using Scroll Reverser[1], but it hasn't been updated to fully support Catalina (it works, but the installation process was not updated to request the permissions in Catalina). I'll check out UnnaturalScrollWheels to see if it's a good replacement. [1] https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

As far as I could tell Scroll Reverse reversed all scrolling, so when I walked away from my desk, I'd have to kill it to use my trackpad normally.

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#14

Post by aptgetrekt »

saagarjha wrote: post #10

I used to use something like this for my mouse, but started using a trackpad full-time so I didn’t need it anymore. Recently I’ve started using a mouse again, but without something like this installed, and now I feel like I like natural scrolling for mice too :/ Must be something you get used to.

I could probably get used to it if I used only macOS, but I use Linux and Windows most of the time and switching scroll directions when I use macOS gets frustrating. That and physical scroll wheels scrolling "unnaturally" is what seems natural to me, @dashwav explains why I feel that way quite well in their reply to another comment.

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#15

Post by pantaloony »

dpcx wrote: post #2

As someone who prefers Natural Scroll (and who understands that there are people who don't), why would someone want Natural Scroll on one interaction method and not on another? That feels like confusion waiting to happen, IMHO.

I map “natural” on the touchpad to moving the page. I map “natural” on the scroll wheel to moving the scrollbar. Both are “natural”, but opposite.

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#16

Post by behnamoh »

I like natural scroll so much I even use AutoHotkey on Windows to emulate the same behavior. Unfortunately, it reverses everything, so, say, volume scroll is reversed too. I'm sure there are workarounds about that.

Unlike some comments here, when I move from TrackPad to mouse, I still think of the scroll wheel as the document, so natural scroll makes more sense for me, personally.

The only thing I would get rid of in TrackPad is the "bounce effect" when you reach the Home/End of the document. Also, many documents are perfectly fit in the app window (e.g. Preview) but still the horizontal scroll moves them around, which is annoying (try opening a new PDF in Preview and use left/right arrow keys to move to next page; it scrolls the document horizontally slightly!)

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#17

Post by Tyr42 »

dpcx wrote: post #2

As someone who prefers Natural Scroll (and who understands that there are people who don't), why would someone want Natural Scroll on one interaction method and not on another? That feels like confusion waiting to happen, IMHO.

I only use trackpads on osx, but I use scroll wheels on linux and windows too. So I'm fine with whatever on the trackpad, but I need my mouse to stay consistent with the rest of the world.

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#18

Post by aptgetrekt »

behnamoh wrote: post #16

I like natural scroll so much I even use AutoHotkey on Windows to emulate the same behavior. Unfortunately, it reverses everything, so, say, volume scroll is reversed too. I'm sure there are workarounds about that. Unlike some comments here, when I move from TrackPad to mouse, I still think of the scroll wheel as the document, so natural scroll makes more sense for me, personally. The only thing I would get rid of in…

You can actually change the scroll direction of a mouse in Windows with a registry edit: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10...

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#19

Post by buffin »

joshgachnang wrote: post #13
muli_d wrote: post #9

Thank you. I've been using Scroll Reverser[1], but it hasn't been updated to fully support Catalina (it works, but the installation process was not updated to request the permissions in Catalina). I'll check out UnnaturalScrollWheels to see if it's a good replacement. [1] https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

As far as I could tell Scroll Reverse reversed all scrolling, so when I walked away from my desk, I'd have to kill it to use my trackpad normally.

You can control this in the preferences: pasteboard.co/JjBKDWf.png

Re: Show HN: UnnaturalScrollWheels – Better scroll wheel settings for macOS

#20

Post by aeyes »

joshgachnang wrote: post #13
muli_d wrote: post #9

Thank you. I've been using Scroll Reverser[1], but it hasn't been updated to fully support Catalina (it works, but the installation process was not updated to request the permissions in Catalina). I'll check out UnnaturalScrollWheels to see if it's a good replacement. [1] https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

As far as I could tell Scroll Reverse reversed all scrolling, so when I walked away from my desk, I'd have to kill it to use my trackpad normally.

There is a separate option to reverse scrolling of the trackpad, works flawless here.
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