Scrollbars are becoming a problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#171

Post by etrautmann » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:53 AM UTC

masswerk wrote: post #143

codalan wrote: post #135

It's not just scrollbars. It's the elimination of window borders. Aside from not being able to differentiate one window from another similarly colored window in the background, it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. It's the overloading of the title bar with so much shit like search boxes and extraneous buttons that a user has almost no place to grip to move the wind…

> it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. This is what the resize box is/was for. (It's actually draggable edges with no "meat" to them, which introduce the conflict by overloading an element, which is also just a pixel wide.) *) The resize box used to sit below the very bottom of the vertical scrollbar, just below the down arrow button, as a distinct and dedicated ha…

Man it was maddening when the window was taller than the screen and you couldn’t access the one box in the bottom corner to resize it.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#172

Post by f33d5173 » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:54 AM UTC

dbetteridge wrote: post #96

f33d5173 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so fuck me, I guess Obviously not, but you also shouldn't expect the whole world to be designed around your needs. If you have difficulty using the expected input method, you should use alternatives with the same functionality, not expect others to redesign their apps in your preferred way.

That's the wrong mentality tbh Design for the best accessibility first and foremost, then try and make things look "prettier". Disabilities can affect anyone at any time and shouldn't be an afterthought.

"Accessibility" here refers to one person's very particular disability. You can't possibly predict the entire gamut of disabilities people might face. Trying to do so "first and foremost" is utter madness.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#173

Post by callalex » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:55 AM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #168

callalex wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one thing Apple got right a veeeery long time ago. Every screen they have sold since like the mid 2000s, both integrated and standalone, has had auto brightness. I don’t understand why other manufacturers still can’t that right, to this day, no matter the price category. Even most non-Apple smartphones these days still suck at this.

I’m surprised Linux doesn’t have some ubiquitous “use the camera to do auto-brightness” option (pinging the camera on a proprietary OS would be creepy, but if it is open source…).

That wouldn’t work very well because pretty much every webcam has auto exposure adjustment. Also a camera is good at determining how much light is in the room behind you, not how much light is hitting the screen. There really is no substitute for a photodiode and a halfway decent control algorithm. It only costs a penny so there really is no excuse not to include one.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#174

Post by tambourine_man » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:55 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #155

codalan wrote: post #135

It's not just scrollbars. It's the elimination of window borders. Aside from not being able to differentiate one window from another similarly colored window in the background, it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. It's the overloading of the title bar with so much shit like search boxes and extraneous buttons that a user has almost no place to grip to move the wind…

I love not having window borders waste screen estate, and solve the grabbing issue by having the windows key + left mouse button bound to moving windows and windows key + right mouse button to resize. I can "grab" the window anywhere, with no need to hit borders or a title bar (which I also don't have...)

That’s nice as a pro feature, but completely undiscoverable for a regular user.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#175

Post by rayiner » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:55 AM UTC

codalan wrote: post #135

It's not just scrollbars. It's the elimination of window borders. Aside from not being able to differentiate one window from another similarly colored window in the background, it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. It's the overloading of the title bar with so much shit like search boxes and extraneous buttons that a user has almost no place to grip to move the wind…

“Morons” is the right word. I don’t like to gratuitously shit on people doing their jobs. But what the hell? I can’t move a window anymore without clicking around like an idiot to figure out what’s part of the title bar and what’s a button. Every time I start “New Teams,” it asks me if I want to go back to Old Teams. If I open a PDF in New Teams from the file browser, it’s not obvious how to close the PDF without losing your place in the file system. And on top of that, everything is grindingly slow.

A lot of people working at Microsoft/Apple/Google are bad their jobs and should feel bad.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#176

Post by foresto » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:56 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #155

codalan wrote: post #135

It's not just scrollbars. It's the elimination of window borders. Aside from not being able to differentiate one window from another similarly colored window in the background, it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. It's the overloading of the title bar with so much shit like search boxes and extraneous buttons that a user has almost no place to grip to move the wind…

I love not having window borders waste screen estate, and solve the grabbing issue by having the windows key + left mouse button bound to moving windows and windows key + right mouse button to resize. I can "grab" the window anywhere, with no need to hit borders or a title bar (which I also don't have...)

The point is not to deny your preferences, but rather that they shouldn't be forced upon everyone else, especially when they break decades of proven usability design and practice.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#177

Post by syldarion » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:56 AM UTC

callalex wrote: post #148

codalan wrote: post #135

It's not just scrollbars. It's the elimination of window borders. Aside from not being able to differentiate one window from another similarly colored window in the background, it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. It's the overloading of the title bar with so much shit like search boxes and extraneous buttons that a user has almost no place to grip to move the wind…

Doesn’t a heavy drop shadow solve the window border problem? Although these days those seem to be fading or disappearing as well.

I'm sure it's negligible these days, but there's also the concern of an increased graphics load since you'll have to do an extra pass for the transparency. But I don't want to dive too far into the mindset of "everything must be optimized to the max".

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#178

Post by pseudalopex » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:58 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #24

pmontra wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Gnome and GTK sell any better because they use tiny scrollbars? Or Macs, or Windows? Apps do what the OS let them do.

I mean, take an average person, show them the UI of a current mac, then the UI of windows 95, and ask them which they prefer? It’s not the only factor, but it is a factor.

It would be more sensible to show them a current Windows. Or Windows 7. Or a Mac with visible scroll bars. Or ask them if they would like Windows 11 more with the scroll bar size setting removed.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#179

Post by colordrops » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:59 AM UTC

codalan wrote: post #135

It's not just scrollbars. It's the elimination of window borders. Aside from not being able to differentiate one window from another similarly colored window in the background, it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. It's the overloading of the title bar with so much shit like search boxes and extraneous buttons that a user has almost no place to grip to move the wind…

Some of those things you mention are configurable at the windowing system level depending on your system. Using SwayWM with xdg-desktop-portal gives control of some of the things you mention, and with keystrokes and tiling so that there is never a need to grab windows by the edge, or almost ever use the mouse for that matter.

Re: Scrollbars are becoming a problem

#180

Post by jchw » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:00 AM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #150

codalan wrote: post #135

It's not just scrollbars. It's the elimination of window borders. Aside from not being able to differentiate one window from another similarly colored window in the background, it's nearly impossible to click and hold on anything along the edge to resize the window. It's the overloading of the title bar with so much shit like search boxes and extraneous buttons that a user has almost no place to grip to move the wind…

I am coming to the opinion that Windows XP was the maximum usable interface, and we should have stopped there [0]. But then, I might just be old and telling the kids to get off my lawn. [0] this is definitely true for Windows. All subsequent versions of Windows have had worse UX.

I absolutely agree. For at least 10 years now, my dream has been to essentially recreate the Windows 2000/XP UX as a Linux desktop environment.

That said, doing so would basically require creating everything from the ground up, because merely theming some existing toolkit and window manager to look like XP is not at all the point. And frankly, there HAVE been SOME useful UI/UX improvements in the past couple decades, like, FTA, minimaps. But can you imagine a much more conservative desktop, with highly integrated apps, based on the "good old days" of desktop design with just a touch of modern elements when they improve on things?

... Truth told, the closest thing in existence is probably SerenityOS... but it really would be more practical if there was a Linux desktop for this. Every so often I fantasize about how I might start such a project. It's been like that forever now.