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Who Killed the Scrollbar?

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Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#131

Post by Stratoscope »

Could I ask a related favor? Stop killing the Page Up / Page Down and cursor keys.

Or put another way, if you have a main content section that is scrollable (and the entire page isn't), then please make sure the focus is set to that scrollable div on page load.

I loaded the linked article and tried to scroll with Page Down, and nothing happened. I had to click inside the article body first, and only then could I scroll it with the keyboard.

I think a lot of sites and apps are built by people who do all their scrolling with the touchpad, and they don't know that there are other ways people like to scroll and it is the designer/developer's job to make sure they all work.

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#132

Post by jonhohle »

JohnFen wrote: post #88
joshstrange wrote: post #13

I actually prefer the current scollbar situation. I HATE when people hijack it but I prefer it to disappear when I don't need it. I can always scroll a tiny amount (magic mouse) to see my progress. I really do like the clearer look to UI's without the bar. > No flipping clue how long the flipping post flipping is. > No flipping way to quickly navigate to the top or bottom of the post. I've literally never had either…

> I prefer it to disappear when I don't need it. My strong preference is the exact opposite of this. I want it to be there, full size, any time that scrolling is possible. It seems that this is something that should be user configurable.

System Preferences > General > Show scroll bars: Always

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#133

Post by jacksam »

cronix wrote: post #103

...and hijacking scroll behavior. Please stop that and just use the defaults, like everyone expects. I'm tired of getting to a site and having it scroll pages at a time when it should just scroll a few lines. And then trying to get back to the correct spot is a pain. Who does this stuff and why do you think it's necessary? What problem do you think you are solving by doing this? I just hit the back button. I'm not go…

I think this is the bigger issue compared to the design of the scrollbar. Personally I don’t really mind if the scrollbar disappears like it does on my Macbook. But when the website hijacks the scroll so I can’t use any gestures to go back or forward, that really pisses me off.

The usual culprit is some crappy Themeforest WordPress Theme the website is using.

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#134

Post by dredmorbius »

JohnFen wrote: post #115
vezycash wrote: post #101

Let's not dance around in a circle - Apple started this with their "minimalist design." First on desktop and later with mobile. Fact of life is everyone copies Apple. Apple doesn't copy and paste things. They'll think deeply before copying. And will modify things to fit their unique needs and situation. Unfortunately, those who copy Apple switch off their brains and pursue the "looks" ALONE, ignore the "feel" and jus…

> Fact of life is everyone copies Apple. And I really, really wish they'd stop it.

A small number of well-considered UI/UX design schemas really is a useful thing.

Apple is, generally, good in many particulars. It is extremely conservative, with only two desktop models (Classic Mac, 1984 - 2000, OS X, 2001 - 2019, and ongoing, which is to say, longer than the original interface). It is ultimately completely antithetical to how I work in desktop, and I find myself vastly prefering Linux and the option of selecting a desktop environment. Ironically: Windowmaker, based on the foundations of the OSX Aqua desktop, NextStep.

Increasingly it seems that Apple is stuck with implications of design decisions made decades ago which correspond increasinly poorly to current practices. The high cost of cycling between applications in particular. No, I don't want ALL FLIPPING WINDOWS of an app to pop up when I switch between the primary current working windows of two different apps. Or workspace flipping as I switch / open new app windows.

Apple's third OS UI, iOS, has a tremendous number of shortcomings. As do virtually all other mobile interfaces. I'm coming to the conclusion that any screen size < 10-15 CM is simply too small to be useful, and prefer a minmum 9-10" (20-25 cm) devices myself.

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#135

Post by a_e_k »

antocv wrote: post #91
buboard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it's nostalgia, even though i m old too. It's just a lot more efficent and faster to use, mouse and keyboard-wise. I often think to roll back to my windows 7 as a more sane desktop environment. Some of the biggest offenses i 've seen are google's web apps. Total loss of hierarchy and replacement with elusive self-hiding buttons, even when it's clear from their use case that they should never have been hamburg…

KDE or plasma whatever its name, is basically unchanged from 1995 UI philosophy. The closest we can have today in 2019.

I run XFCE (via Xubuntu) on my home desktop for the same reason. The lightness is a bonus.

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#136

Post by dredmorbius »

shadowgovt wrote: post #57
m4r35n357 wrote: post #38

Idiots removed the triangles at top & bottom that you could use to scroll without dragging. I think they did it because they are stupid and evil.

They did it because the buttons took up room, were used by nearly nobody, and (in the case of the "jump to top" / "jump to bottom" buttons) destroyed the user's scroll state in a non-undoable way that was too easy to trigger.

On touch devices, that's frequently the case.

Some form of multi-stage action (select/confirm) and a scroll-undo / scroll-backnav (return to prior location w/in doc/screen/page) might help.

Small-screen design is hard, and there are a number of distinct breakpoints at which different concepts do and don't work.

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#137

Post by quelltext »

coldtea wrote: post #32
quelltext wrote: post #21

For fuck's sake, if you need to be swearing (and I don't think it's necessary at all), just use the actual words.

We don't swear because it's necessary to convey the base information about something. We swear because it's useful to convey our feelings/emotional state/anger about it. And of all things you could comment, not only is this not related to the topic of TFA at all, but it's also inconsequential, to the point of being some personal peculiarity... Who cares if he uses the "real" swear words or not?

Yes, it is off topic and I don't expect a full treatment of the pros and cons. However, it is certainly not the first time that people have commented on non content of a submission, e.g. bad color choice, hard to read, style, etc.

The thing is I felt the amount of swearing was distracting, and not using the actual word then made these swears stick out even more, distracting further from the content.

Maybe not relevant to you, but it's what I felt.

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#138

Post by ubu7737 »

jerf wrote: post #60
ibero wrote: post #5

This is a pretty fluff piece. There isn't really much explored here. The only interesting idea I can write out is that the author says that knowing the length/size of an article/book is intrinsically good. I do wonder if that is necessarily true. Maybe one can argue that knowing the length of a written word has resulted in less people engaging?

"Maybe one can argue that knowing the length of a written word has resulted in less people engaging?" Boy, doesn't that just have the distinctive ring of an uncomfortable truth... at least for some of these cases. I offer in counterpoint that engagement-focused sites have probably already determined that their content is "less engaging" if it's long enough for a scrollbar to appear at all. If it wasn't for the litera…

When engagement is sold to advertisers, it's difficult to trust any changes to the UI.

The scrollbar should be sacred. Otherwise everything will wind up with sliding-window advertisements.

Re: Who Killed the Scrollbar?

#139

Post by Narishma »

city41 wrote: post #65
yeldarb wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like it only does this on sufficiently "small" screens. This is what it looks like on my external display: https://imgur.com/a/DJBiYJ6

Oh you're right. Interesting. My browser is 1134x1080. I guess maybe in today's world of super high res phones that could be considered a "mobile display".

I don't think it has anything to do with resolution. I'm getting the same thing as the parent on my 1366x768.

Edit: It's actually the width that matters. After reducing it a bit it will show the hamburger menu.

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