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

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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

#71

Post by popnfreshspk »

callmevlad wrote: post #59
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'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 ov…

I question the necessity of having to make scroll bars consistent across browsers.

Seeing as how most people only use one browser (data collected out of thin air), wouldn't changing the native styling on a browser scrollbar be confusing for people expecting the native styling?

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

#72

Post by NathanKP »

regularfry wrote: post #57
NathanKP wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

So given that you like to use the scrollbar in that matter which would you rather see:

1) A native scrollbar that is restyled to match the colors of the webpage it is in? 2) A janky web view with scrollbars hidden and then reimplemented in JS which doesn't function they way you want it to?

Like it or not designers usually don't spend time on the subset of the audience that clicks and drags the scrollbar. They spend time drawing a pretty looking scrollbar.

When it comes to the implementation personally I think it still better to have a scrollbar that functions the way you expect it to, even if it looks a little different, rather than ending up with many different reimplementations of the scrollbar by different programmers.

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

#73

Post by callmevlad »

popnfreshspk wrote: post #71
callmevlad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ov…

I question the necessity of having to make scroll bars consistent across browsers. Seeing as how most people only use one browser (data collected out of thin air), wouldn't changing the native styling on a browser scrollbar be confusing for people expecting the native styling?

Please take a look at the screenshot I posted: https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn

Assuming you were using Firefox, what would you think about those two white scrollbars that stick out like a sore thumb in a dark interface?

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

#74

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

callmevlad wrote: post #73
popnfreshspk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the necessity of having to make scroll bars consistent across browsers. Seeing as how most people only use one browser (data collected out of thin air), wouldn't changing the native styling on a browser scrollbar be confusing for people expecting the native styling?

Please take a look at the screenshot I posted: https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn Assuming you were using Firefox, what would you think about those two white scrollbars that stick out like a sore thumb in a dark interface?

First off, that doesn't work without JS. I mean really: It's a couple of screenshots.

Secondly, I prefer it. Far too many websites adjust things to the point where it's impossible to actually see. (Case in point: link styling. To the point where I have bookmarklets to remove styling from pages.)

I understand having the option to do so. But at the same time, I wouldn't use said option. To me, readability > aesthetics. And far too many websites don't respect that.

Please read JS;DR: http://tantek.com/2015/069/t1/js-dr-javascript-required-dead

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

#75

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

NathanKP wrote: post #72
regularfry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

So given that you like to use the scrollbar in that matter which would you rather see: 1) A native scrollbar that is restyled to match the colors of the webpage it is in? 2) A janky web view with scrollbars hidden and then reimplemented in JS which doesn't function they way you want it to? Like it or not designers usually don't spend time on the subset of the audience that clicks and drags the scrollbar. They spend t…

3) Overriding the removal of the default scrollbar so I can actually use a scrollbar that works.

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

#76

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

macspoofing wrote: post #20
sergiotapia wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scroll bar is (or should be!) OS-controlled. Why give people the opportunity to muck up the scroll bar and add their crazy ideas. The browser belongs to the user, not the website.

I'm not clear why it's good that you can style every other UI component except this one.

First off, because it isn't. There are a number of things that personally shouldn't be styled. Or rather, there are a number of things that should have their styles overridable without breaking things.

There are an astounding number of things I've seen abused, badly. I mean - look at the number of websites that aren't usable without a web font because they embedded all of their icons in it. Bonus points if they load the web font via JS. Bonus points if it's third-party JS.

Secondly, you cannot style every other UI component except this one. The browser chrome. The mouse pointer. The context menu (to an extent, depending on browser).

The thing with scrollbars is that they are at the boundary between the website and the browser. There are pros and cons - allowing "good" websites to apply "good" styles, but not for inane UIs.

Personally, I think that the better approach would be for the browser to color the scrollbar dependent on the background color of the page.

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

#77

Post by scrollaway »

TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #74
callmevlad wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please take a look at the screenshot I posted: https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn Assuming you were using Firefox, what would you think about those two white scrollbars that stick out like a sore thumb in a dark interface?

First off, that doesn't work without JS. I mean really: It's a couple of screenshots. Secondly, I prefer it. Far too many websites adjust things to the point where it's impossible to actually see. (Case in point: link styling. To the point where I have bookmarklets to remove styling from pages.) I understand having the option to do so. But at the same time, I wouldn't use said option. To me, readability > aesthetics.…

Er, what?

You need to start differenciating between "documents" and "applications". What GP linked is a full-blown application. There's no "non-javascript" version of it.

I have been watching comments here and it is absolutely infuriating how it's very obviously armchair designers with zero experience in the field who are yelling out "aesthetics don't matter, scrollbars should always look like my system's scrollbars".

First of all, that is a ridiculous statement. On Linux for example there is no "system scrollbars", the styling is up to the toolkit and it is different in every single web browser out there. There's no consistency to be had across applications.

Second of all, every other toolkit element can be styled. Buttons. Dropdown menus. Text fields. Everything. They can all be styled not so your "documents" will be less readable, but so that developers and designers are empowered to create applications that look good, feel fluid, native, consistent.

They can be styled because applications can be more than just 20-input field forms. Native applications have the power to style their scrollbars (and they do so all the time), so web applications need it too to match such capabilities. We're not talking about an unused feature here.

And to those complaining about scrolling behaviour, accessibility etc: Those are the exact reasons why we need scrollbar styling. Because when your company is hounding you to have scrollbars that don't look out of place on a major browser "and look, our competition does it", you're realistically not just going to tell them "well, uh, readability is important". You're going to use fake, pure-js scrollers and accessibility will suffer. Everybody loses.

This isn't about purple scrollbars for your text documents.

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

#78

Post by scrollaway »

radley wrote: post #63
callmevlad wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that would not solve the issue that led me to offer the bounty. Check out the difference between the scrollbars in Webflow rendered across Webkit (Safari, Chrome, Opera) and Firefox: https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn Note that not only does Webkit give you control over colors, it gives you control over the width/height of the scrollbar - which for us is critically important.

I understand what you're asking for, but when available those settings are usually set by the user, not the webpage. Customization is a very, very slippery slope: can the web page only customize the slider? What about the tab? Why not the entire frame of the browser? The drop shadow of the window? Opacity? Alpha mask? Why just the sliders? Why not just the tab? Ahhhh.... If the web page can change the style, can the…

> Customization is a very, very slippery slope: can the web page only customize the slider?

I can't believe what I'm reading. Honest question: Have you ever used css?

The scrollbar is one of extremely few elements living inside the browser frame which cannot be styled.

The scrollbar on the outside of the page doesn't matter. What matters is all the scrollbars that appear when you deal with iframes, scrolling divs etc.

For app builders, when scrollbar styling is not available, what do you think they do? They don't give up, they just implement scrolling in js instead, and accessibility/usability suffers.

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

#79

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

scrollaway wrote: post #77
TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, that doesn't work without JS. I mean really: It's a couple of screenshots. Secondly, I prefer it. Far too many websites adjust things to the point where it's impossible to actually see. (Case in point: link styling. To the point where I have bookmarklets to remove styling from pages.) I understand having the option to do so. But at the same time, I wouldn't use said option. To me, readability > aesthetics.…

Er, what? You need to start differenciating between "documents" and "applications". What GP linked is a full-blown application. There's no "non-javascript" version of it. I have been watching comments here and it is absolutely infuriating how it's very obviously armchair designers with zero experience in the field who are yelling out "aesthetics don't matter, scrollbars should always look like my system's scrollbars"…

From my perspective, at the very least, the link was a means of showing a couple of screenshots.

Is it a full-blown application? Sure, I guess. But I could care less about that.

The actual content is a couple of screenshots - not exactly something that requires JS.

Also, I'm not speaking about designers at all. I am not a website designer, and never claimed to be one.

I'm speaking as someone who uses a web browser. As I said earlier: To me, readability > aesthetics. Especially as I'm often on-the-go. Things that look better but are lower contrast are often unreadable when you've got any amount of glare on the screen.

I use one web browser for the majority of my browsing. So yes, there is consistency. I'm not talking about across applications, I'm talking about within an application.

It may not be about purple scrollbars for your text documents, but that's what it will largely end up being used for.

And yes, native applications have a greater power to style things. But there is a distinction. Native applications inherently require greater trust. I'm not going to install any random application that comes my way.

Also, there are applications I stay away from precisely because of that - precisely because they have weird styling, and weird UIs. Case in point: Github's desktop application. Great program - or would be if I could get over the UI. But as is, I don't tend to use it.

That being said, it's a bit of a moot point regardless. It's just yet another thing I'll add to the list of bookmarklets to disable things to make websites readable. Along with many of the other things you mention as people being able to style as features.

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

#80

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

callmevlad wrote: post #60
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.

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 :)

For anyone else who doesn't want to suffer through yet another unnecessary web application:

http://imgur.com/a/mkbHB

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