Re: Gtk scrollbar: thumb too short

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

Miles Bader wrote:

   Emacs should _definitely_ use the same scrollbar as other GTK apps
   because regardless of any different behavior in corner cases, it's 95%
   the same thing.

I am not so sure.  I personally believe that the difference between a
character based view and a pixel based view is more than 5%.  I
believe there are essentially three possibilities:

1.  Restore the native scrollbar as the default.  (Perfectly
    acceptable to me, in fact, it is the solution I have chosen for my
    personal use, but I do not know whether it would be acceptable to
    other people.)

2.  Use an imperfect approximation of the GTK scrollbar (or some other
    scrollbar) that looks like the GTK scrollbar, but that is a not
    very consistent hybrid between the GTK scrollbar and the native one.

3.  Make the GTK scrollbar more customizable so that it can optionally
    handle a character based approach and hence behave, within Emacs,
    more like the native scrollbar than the pixel based variant of the
    GTK scrollbar.

Both 1. and 3. would satisfy me as an Emacs user.  If 2. is chosen
then I hope that one will keep allowing users like me to override the
default choice using: ./configure --without-toolkit-scroll-bars

   I somehow get the impression you're worried that if GTK supports these
   extensions for emacs, it will `pollute' users' idea of how a scrollbar
   works; if so this seems kind of silly.

Owen should clarify his concerns himself, but I have the impression
that his concerns with solution 3. (and 2., I guess) are that users
would not longer clearly know what to expect when they see a GTK
scrollbar.  The appearance of the GTK scrollbar was chosen to provide
a metaphor for a a pixel based approach.  Exact same appearance with
different behavior is confusing, unless the difference was due to
customizations deliberately made by the user (as opposed to by the
application).

Sincerely,

Luc.