Intuitive "Popup" Scrollbars

[Thorsten Wilms]

On Sat, 2008-08-16 at 09:50 -0700, Dylan McCall wrote:

> You've probably noticed this already, but I find it hard to grab the
> 'bar' if my mouse is already in the trough. I have to move the mouse off
> of the trough and then back on where the bar is. I know it's not
> necessary to grab the bar, and also that one can drag after clicking an
> arrow (cool!) but some users will expect that functionality anyway.

You can always just drag, so I don't see a problem there. I already use
highlighting of the indicator on hovering the bar and a cursor change to
encourage to not aim for the indicator.


> The scroll arrows should have a timer for when they disappear. Some
> users will move the mouse off of the trough by accident. Right now, the
> arrows disappear and then reset at a different position. If the pointer
> is moved straight back on, the arrows are centred around it instead of
> one being directly below.

Such a delay before a reset is already on my list. Other entries:
- page-wise stepping on click-hold (switch to sliding on drag)
- continued scrolling on hitting screen edges
- additional horizontal version
- drawing button areas all the way to the top/bottom
  to leave no doubt about target areas
- better name (I'm using dynamic scrollbars now)
- look into packaging deb/ppa

I started to use bzr/launchpad:
https://code.launchpad.net/~t-w-/+junk/dynamic_scrollbar
Current state is pretty dodgy, not useful for testing.


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/