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Don't reinvent the scrollbar

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Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#91

Post by [deleted] »

jfb wrote: post #47
bhauer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Not to put to fine a point on it, but if your user is on iOS or OS X, they are accustomed to losing sight of their progress because, as the article says, "Apple knows best." Going out of your way as a content author to correct for the user interface quirks of the reader's preferred reading environment seems extraordinary and unnecessary. Presumably a non-trivial number of iOS and OS X users actually like the…

"Going out of your way as a content author to correct for the user interface quirks of the reader's preferred reading environment seems extraordinary and unnecessary." I would actually say that it's outright user hostile to do this sort of garbage.

[deleted]

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#92

Post by mbell »

millstone wrote: post #83
TheZenPsycho wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my preferred reading environment, but I hate that apple made this decision, because, as my sibling commenter here noted, it's outright user hostile. Apple never really totally understood the "visibility" requirement of usable interfaces. They like to hide things to make them look pretty, and it only leads to better advertising, not better interfaces. Thankfully there's still a setting to always show scrollbars.…

The scrolling interface is always visible. It's just on the input device instead of the screen. Originally, the scroll bar itself was the interface. You scrolled by clicking the little arrows, or by grabbing the scroll thumb and dragging. But when scroll wheels were introduced, the scroll bar became less necessary. And with the advent of trackpad magic/mouse scrolling, which support both horizontal and vertical scrol…

For the most part I agree, I like what OSX does. However, there are edge cases which are infuriating. Have you tried to scroll through an HTML in Chrome on OSX? The only word I can use to describe the experience is 'rage'.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#93

Post by supercoder »

TheZenPsycho wrote: post #72
madeofpalk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it comes down to personal taste. I for one like that they hide away, and I can bring them back just by holding down for two fingers on my trackpad. Thankfully you can make scroll bars persistent in System Preferences.

The "personal taste" argument comes up a lot in usability conversations. I find it to be incredibly weak. I might personally prefer to walk blindfolded across busy roadways. But that doesn't make it broadly easy or advisable. It's just simply a bad decision. There shouldn't be a preference, it should just be on by default, end of story. It only makes sense on iPads. The fact that it's auto-hide by default means that…

This case is almost certainly preference. I prefer the indicators hidden, you prefer them on.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#94

Post by hobb0001 »

madeofpalk wrote: post #64
TheZenPsycho wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my preferred reading environment, but I hate that apple made this decision, because, as my sibling commenter here noted, it's outright user hostile. Apple never really totally understood the "visibility" requirement of usable interfaces. They like to hide things to make them look pretty, and it only leads to better advertising, not better interfaces. Thankfully there's still a setting to always show scrollbars.…

I guess it comes down to personal taste. I for one like that they hide away, and I can bring them back just by holding down for two fingers on my trackpad. Thankfully you can make scroll bars persistent in System Preferences.

I can't count the number of times my coworkers have said something along the lines of, "What are you talking about? I never saw anything about... oh, wait... I didn't realize it was scrollable. Never mind."

After that happens a couple of times, they eventually find their way to the System Preferences.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#96

Post by millstone »

bhauer wrote: post #88
millstone wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Safari, there's no visual indication that the content is horizontally scrollable. That's a problem. In Firefox, there's a big scroll bar. This scroll bar consumes more visual space than the content it scrolls. That's an absurdity. Scrollbars are a legacy UI element, a throwback to an era before scrolling mice and trackpads. You nicely illustrated a problem, but your proposed solution makes no sense on modern compu…

> Scrollbars are a legacy UI element, a throwback to an era before scrolling mice and trackpads I think there's disagreement about that here, which in a manner of speaking, is behind the mixed opinions expressed in this thread. I for one do not seek a browser without a scrollbar even though my mouse has a scroll-wheel. Making very large adjustments to my scroll position using the wheel is annoying: either I spin the…

Good points. I should revise what I wrote to touch-enabled scrolling hardware.

With a scroll wheel, both fine and gross movements are more difficult. The scroll wheel has a fixed set of positions, and is optimized for scrolling a line or two at a time. I also have never liked the modal "scroll mode" that you describe.

With a magic mouse or scrolling trackpad, you get a much larger surface area available for scrolling, and there are more gradations. Inertia scrolling also makes it easy to scroll to the bottom or top of documents quickly: you can quickly "flick" to get to the bottom or top, which feels pretty natural.

As a result, I find I interact with the scroll bar a lot less on my MacBook Air than I do on my scroll-wheel equipped desktop. I'm not sure what the situation is like on Windows though.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#97

Post by mintplant »

chris_wot wrote: post #68

You think that's bad? Gnome 3 removed single line scrolling by removing the up and down arrows "because nobody would need that ". Unity is even worse, with its overlay scrollbars.

I feel like I'm the only one in the world who actually likes overlay scrollbars on Linux. They give me the ability to easily scroll the terminal when I need to, without wasting space during the majority of the time that I don't.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#98

Post by kelnos »

Myrth wrote: post #84
bhauer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with you--I prefer for the scrollbar to remain visible. In my preferred reading environment, a Windows PC running Firefox, it does remain visible. I like clean design, but not at the expense of function. I am firmly of the opinion that too much functionality has been sacrificed from modern user interfaces at the altar of simplicity. I'm nevertheless of the point of view that the content author should…

Sometimes I'd like to have control over my full page representation and width across browsers and OSes, and scrollbars styling is missing or non-uniform or unreliable. EDIT: Scrollbars are inside viewport, meaning they're effectively part of my document, and I'd like to have a say how they look like, the same as form elements.

Ugh, no. I want every UI control to look the same, everywhere. The scrollbars are not effectively a part of your document. That's not the case for a browser, or an office app, or anything that displays scrolling content. They're a property of the container, not the document.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#99

Post by TheZenPsycho »

supercoder wrote: post #93
TheZenPsycho wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "personal taste" argument comes up a lot in usability conversations. I find it to be incredibly weak. I might personally prefer to walk blindfolded across busy roadways. But that doesn't make it broadly easy or advisable. It's just simply a bad decision. There shouldn't be a preference, it should just be on by default, end of story. It only makes sense on iPads. The fact that it's auto-hide by default means that…

This case is almost certainly preference. I prefer the indicators hidden, you prefer them on.

You prefer your car headlights off at night. I prefer them on. Completely preference, right?

You missed my point. Just invoking the word "preference" is a weak argument. You need something more like an actual argument. With evidence and logic.

Re: Don't reinvent the scrollbar

#100

Post by TheZenPsycho »

millstone wrote: post #85
TheZenPsycho wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle I agree with you. In this case apple's decision causes actual problems with content. Putting stuff in a scrollable iframe, or overflow scroll pane now involves carefully instructing people on how to scroll it. Or you force your own custom scrollbars. Or just not have scrollable panes-- you could argue that is a good thing, but sometimes they are unavoidable. Like, for instance, here on HN if someone happ…

In Safari, there's no visual indication that the content is horizontally scrollable. That's a problem. In Firefox, there's a big scroll bar. This scroll bar consumes more visual space than the content it scrolls. That's an absurdity. Scrollbars are a legacy UI element, a throwback to an era before scrolling mice and trackpads. You nicely illustrated a problem, but your proposed solution makes no sense on modern compu…

I didn't propose a solution. I asked a question: Whose problem is it to solve? The user's? Apple's? HN's?

Apple certainly took it upon themselves to cause the problem. What's your proposed solution?

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