“We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling” • Hacker News Board

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#31

Post by sukilot » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:24 AM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #16

OmarIsmail wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Websites already implement their own scroll bars - Gmail, Google Spreadsheets, etc. It would be nice if instead of having to reimplement _everything_ about the scrollbar to just add a feature or two, the native one was customizable. Because frankly, people are going to change it, so might as well make things less buggy.

Gmail uses webkit scrollbar styling, they don't reimplement scrollbars from scratch. If you go to gmail in Firefox it uses the stock scrollbars, which is really a major advantage to Firefox in my mind. It's kind of like when Chrome stopped supporting the tag even though webkit still supported it. Basically all of the times that I see this feature being used it is to make tiny, mostly transparent, or auto-hiding scrol…

Of course nowadays we see that tiny, mostly transparent, auto hiding scrollbars are the system UI!

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#32

Post by lifeformed » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:25 AM UTC

frozenport wrote: post #3

Should we consider an anti-bounty system where we agree to pay more to the foundation for not implementing a `feature`? I personally, don't like websites breaking the 4th wall.

Remember, it's not just the main scrollbars at the top and bottom of the window. Some pages have internal text regions with scrollbars, and it seems reasonable to style those. Those aren't browser UI, they're UI of the page.

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#33

Post by Swizec » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:26 AM UTC

mynegation wrote: post #11

To the naysayers: styling scrollbars has a very valid use-case. Two IDEs that I use most at work are Visual Studio 2012 and JetBrains PyCharm. I always switch to the dark theme on both, and try to use dark styling whenever possible. Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be overwhelming. Both IDEs style the scrollbars to conform to the dark theme. You cannot do that in browser, unless you resort…

> Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be overwhelming.

Have you ever tried f.lux? Or maybe monitors with variable brightness? (Apple's Thunderbolt displays have a light sensor and adjust automatically, probably others as well)

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#34

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:27 AM UTC

mikelat wrote: post #29

radley wrote: post #28

I think the simple solution is adding a "light/dark" setting for browsers. We certainly don't need every color of the rainbow (omg gross), but this simple option could be universal and solve most requests.

Better yet, the browsers should easily be able to predict the dominant color of the page by parsing the CSS file and most of the DOM, and pick a complimentary scrollbar contrast accordingly. Maybe do that and allow override to light/dark.

Or, just allow the element to be styled like every other thing on the page. Because...why not again? Imaginary 4th wall that the bar is the only thing on the page that should not be stylable? So that it can match the scroll bars of native applications?

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#35

Post by NathanKP » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:30 AM UTC

esrauch wrote: post #17

bhouston wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do find it useful on http://Clara.io in the editor (you have to be logged in to see them) -- we have a complex UI and the standard thick scroll bar is ugly and much too large. So we thin them down and simplify the styling so that they fit more into the overall UI. It is a very pleasing difference.

This is just my one experience (and you certainly know better the needs of your own product) but you are gaining "that looks nice" in exchange for "this is harder to use because the target is smaller and harder to click".

The action of clicking the scrollbar is more of an edge case than a significant design cornerstone these days. Most people are going to be scrolling with a mouse wheel, or a two finger swipe on their touchpad, etc. Clicking and dragging a control is slower, and a fundamentally bad experience in the first place.

The only practical purpose of the scrollbar in modern design is to serve as a visual indicator that an area can be scrolled, and to show location and scale.

If you have a reasonably complicated web app there is a good chance you are going to need a scrolling view inside your page. You still need a scrollbar to show that the area can be scrolled, but using the default control styling looks really ugly.

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#36

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:31 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #9

I was reading through this, just laughing and laughing at how ridiculous it was that people in 2001 thought changing the color of the scroll bar was somehow important or useful. I was all, "Hahah, people were very silly in 2001, and the web was a very silly place." Then, as the years crept ever forward, I began to realize this isn't a blast from the past...it's not like a discussion about the blink tag. It's a real t…

I don't necessarily want to change the color (although, why not?), I mostly just want to change the width of the bar. Having a huge, fat, white and grey scroll-bar on an overflowed `div` right in the middle of my sleek, dark-themed site with integrated 3D (both CSS and WebGL) elements just sticks out more than a huge, swollen thumb. For now I've set `direction: rtl;` so that it blends into the left-side of the page and is hopefully overlooked by most people.

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#37

Post by scrapcode » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:38 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #33

mynegation wrote: post #11

To the naysayers: styling scrollbars has a very valid use-case. Two IDEs that I use most at work are Visual Studio 2012 and JetBrains PyCharm. I always switch to the dark theme on both, and try to use dark styling whenever possible. Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be overwhelming. Both IDEs style the scrollbars to conform to the dark theme. You cannot do that in browser, unless you resort…

> Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be overwhelming. Have you ever tried f.lux? Or maybe monitors with variable brightness? (Apple's Thunderbolt displays have a light sensor and adjust automatically, probably others as well)

May I also add that Redshift is an alternative on Linux and there are multiples on iOS and Android. These apps and bright light therapy have done numbers on my shift-work disorder.

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#38

Post by derefr » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:48 AM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #32

frozenport wrote: post #3

Should we consider an anti-bounty system where we agree to pay more to the foundation for not implementing a `feature`? I personally, don't like websites breaking the 4th wall.

Remember, it's not just the main scrollbars at the top and bottom of the window. Some pages have internal text regions with scrollbars, and it seems reasonable to style those. Those aren't browser UI, they're UI of the page.

And, in between, there are the scrollbars on iframes and overflowed divs. They're almost always suppressed entirely... because the defaults are so ugly.

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#39

Post by derefr » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:52 AM UTC

radley wrote: post #28

I think the simple solution is adding a "light/dark" setting for browsers. We certainly don't need every color of the rainbow (omg gross), but this simple option could be universal and solve most requests.

I don't think anyone who wants this wants to change the color. They want to change the shape (border-radius), or make the scrollbar "flat" (no 3D "groove" border), or translucent, or thinner, or etc. etc. etc.

Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”

#40

Post by mynegation » Mon, Apr 06, 2015, 3:53 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #33

mynegation wrote: post #11

To the naysayers: styling scrollbars has a very valid use-case. Two IDEs that I use most at work are Visual Studio 2012 and JetBrains PyCharm. I always switch to the dark theme on both, and try to use dark styling whenever possible. Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be overwhelming. Both IDEs style the scrollbars to conform to the dark theme. You cannot do that in browser, unless you resort…

> Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be overwhelming. Have you ever tried f.lux? Or maybe monitors with variable brightness? (Apple's Thunderbolt displays have a light sensor and adjust automatically, probably others as well)

Thank you for recommendation, for whatever reason I did not know (forgot) that f.lux works on Windows. f.lux changes color temperature, not brightness. I tried changing overall brightness level with controls, but that unavoidably reduces contrast which is just as bad.