If web apps are to be like native apps then this is something that has to be done.
“We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
51–60 of 87 posts
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#52Please link to the actual place on the page you are referring to. The discussion spans 14 years. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c188
> The discussion spans 14 years.
And this is basically why I hate the obstinacy of Mozilla.
It is not difficult to find discussions that spans more than one decade, where the official consensus is "web authors: get screwed, we would rather die than to add X feature".
Yet, I will never understand why Mozilla decided to implement some -webkit-prefixes to Firefox not that long ago, since their arguments can be reused in any neverending bug report like this one.
I'm against the webkit/blink monoculture that many web authors wished we had, but at this point I don't know what to expect.
One part of me applauds whenever a new website (ex. Mega or WhatsApp Web) launches without support for Firefox at day one, because ignoring Firefox is the way Mozilla will eventually stop their obstinacy.
But other part of me gets sad, because Firefox is the only feasible alternative the web has against webkit/blink, and the web can't afford to have a weak alternative against a monoculture.
I can only hope IE/Spartan to become a feasible alternative, because I can't expect Mozilla to stop their obstinacy until they have no choice.
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, and I personally really hate it when websites provide their own scrolling mechanism, as it usually doesn't support two-finger (mouse wheel) scroll, doesn't have acceleration, doesn't have my OS scroll speed, etc. IMO overriding scroll bars on your site / app is almost always a bad idea, as it leads to poor UX / usability. Edit: I'd also extend my opinion to cover things like a strip of items which must be sc…
I absolutely agree that reimplementing scrolling logic is absolutely awful. It's an accessibility nightmare. But scrollbar styling is very different to scrolling logic. We're not talking about stealing people's mousewheels here, we're talking about changing scrollbar themes. This is important for apps which want native scrolling logic inside their app but want their app to look native. The only alternative, in fact,…
but want their app to look native.
Shouldn't you not be attempting to modify the appearance of the scrollbars and letting them be the style the OS chooses, if you want them to look "native"? These developers seem to be wanting scrollbar styling so they can make scrollbars look different from their native appearance.
There are also quite a few truly native apps which have reinvented scrollbars instead of using the OS', and they are awkward to use because they don't behave exactly like native ones do.
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I absolutely agree that reimplementing scrolling logic is absolutely awful. It's an accessibility nightmare. But scrollbar styling is very different to scrolling logic. We're not talking about stealing people's mousewheels here, we're talking about changing scrollbar themes. This is important for apps which want native scrolling logic inside their app but want their app to look native. The only alternative, in fact,…
but want their app to look native. Shouldn't you not be attempting to modify the appearance of the scrollbars and letting them be the style the OS chooses, if you want them to look "native"? These developers seem to be wanting scrollbar styling so they can make scrollbars look different from their native appearance. There are also quite a few truly native apps which have reinvented scrollbars instead of using the OS'…
Sometimes I feel as if I'm talking to programmers who have zero design experience.
Behaviour is not the same as styling. A good app's scrollbars will behave natively but will look in line with the rest of the app.
Compare GMail's scrollbars, especially the ones for the XMPP Chat, between Firefox and Chrome.
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#55Please link to the actual place on the page you are referring to. The discussion spans 14 years. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c188
> The discussion spans 14 years. And this is basically why I hate the obstinacy of Mozilla. It is not difficult to find discussions that spans more than one decade, where the official consensus is "web authors: get screwed, we would rather die than to add X feature". Yet, I will never understand why Mozilla decided to implement some -webkit-prefixes to Firefox not that long ago, since their arguments can be reused in…
> It is not difficult to find discussions that spans more than one decade, where the official consensus is "web authors: get screwed, we would rather die than to add X feature".
And yet, this doesn't appear to be the case here: > People, people. We already know what the solution is to be -- binding XBL to pseudo-elements. There is no point commenting here. We all know you want it. If you're not volunteering to fix it, please don't comment at all.[0]
Rather, nobody seems to have stepped up to actually implement the feature for the past decade, wich isn't all that surprising since implementing this seems to be quite the effort:
> (1) this is a pretty involved bug; it would take weeks to months of work for a full-time engineer[1]
[0] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c125 [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c173
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what, exactly, is going to happen if people "abuse" scrollbar styling? Or button styling? Are we here to fight lame design fads by preventing people from building cool apps?
When I come to a website, it's usually because I want some particular piece of information (like movie times or ticket prices) or to have some particular interaction (to find new, interesting stories or to play a game). Good design (and good designers) keep that goal in mind, and support it by keeping distracting elements (possibly including weird, mis-styled scrollbars!) to a minimum, allowing me to focus. Less-good…
If you want such a button, search for bookmarlets. I usually install one that makes all fonts the same (large) size and one that forces all texts to B/W. Can't live without it.
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Most people
Really? Have you got any numbers for this, or are you actually saying "this is how I use it, and I presume most people are like me"? Because what you're saying simply isn't true for me.
When I'm reading a long block of content, I'll often click the scroll thumb and keep it clicked, using either the mouse or trackpad (or trackball, for that matter) to seek proportionally through the page. You don't get that proportionality of motion with either the mouse wheel or the two-finger trackpad gestures which mimic it.
The "most people" argument you're making is what leads to broken ideas like infinite scrolling, which appeals to one subset of the population who assume that everyone else uses their UI in precisely the same way that they do.
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#58It's worth noting that Firefox's scrollbars, at least on Windows, don't truly behave exactly like the native ones either:
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#59I 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'm the guy who offered the bounty, and for us (webflow.com) it's not about styling scrollbars on ordinary websites - it's about making sure application user interfaces are consistent across browsers.
Take a look at this comparison between Chrome and Firefox: https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn
Webkit's ability to style scrollbars gives app developers a ton more control over a user interface. Some advantages of Webkit over Firefox here:
* Custom styling without hacky JavaScript "fake scroll" scripts
* Control over the width of a scrollbar
* Better usability for certain use cases by enabling Up and Down buttons
* Scrollbars actually look like they belong inside the application
* Doesn't remind users that they're in a web browser
In my 15+ years of building websites, I never wanted to change the color of the browser scroll bar either. But now I'm building a website that builds websites, so it's a whole 'nother ball game :)
Re: “We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling”
#60Should 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.
Honest question: How would you solve this stark difference in UIs if you're building an in-browser application? https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn
Disclaimer: I'm the guy who submitted the bounty :)