Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Romain Francoise]

Shouldn't vertical scroll bars be on the right side of the buffer when
Emacs is built with the GTK toolkit?  GNOME applications usually have
the scroll bar on the right, and the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
discourage placing it on the left:

<URL: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/controls-scrollbars.html>

On Windows (and, as far as I know, on Mac OS), Emacs already places the
scroll bar consistently with the user environment it's running in (i.e.,
on the right).

-- 
Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com> | I like the streets when
it's a miracle -- http://orebokech.com/ | they're empty, I can make the
                                        | rest up.

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Henrik Enberg]

> From: Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com>
> Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 23:40:16 +0200
> 
> Shouldn't vertical scroll bars be on the right side of the buffer when
> Emacs is built with the GTK toolkit?  GNOME applications usually have
> the scroll bar on the right, and the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines
> discourage placing it on the left:
> 
> <URL: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/controls-scrollbars.html>

Emacs doesn't follow Gnome interface guidelines in any other regard, so
I don't see why it should here.  I think it's much more important for
Emacs to be consistent with itself.

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[David Kastrup]

Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com> writes:

> Shouldn't vertical scroll bars be on the right side of the buffer
> when Emacs is built with the GTK toolkit?  GNOME applications
> usually have the scroll bar on the right, and the GNOME Human
> Interface Guidelines discourage placing it on the left:
>
> <URL:http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/controls-scrollbars.html>

That talks about "viewer controls".  Emacs is not predominantly a
viewer, but an editor.  That means that one uses the mouse often to
place point, and the left border is more important than the right
border.  For a mere viewer, the right placement has the minuscule
advantage that the typical cursor image does not obscur any content.

> On Windows (and, as far as I know, on Mac OS), Emacs already places
> the scroll bar consistently with the user environment it's running
> in (i.e., on the right).

I don't consider this an advantage.  Anyway, this should not be
decided by GTK toolkit use, but at the most by the GTK scrollbar use
(I use GTK toolkit, but --without-toolkit-scroll-bars).  Personally, I
don't think it a good idea to have GTK scroll bars on the right, but
then I don't consider GTK scroll bars a good idea, anyway.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Romain Francoise]

Henrik Enberg <henrik.enberg@telia.com> writes:

> Emacs doesn't follow Gnome interface guidelines in any other regard, so
> I don't see why it should here.

In some ways it does, even if it's informal.  See for example the
changes that were made to the menu bar in Emacs 21, compared to what is
was in Emacs 20.  And the tool bar icons, etc.

GNOME is the GNU Desktop Environment, I think it makes sense to make
sure that Emacs blends in that environment, so that users can feel
comfortable with it.

(For the record, I don't use scroll bars, menu bars or tool bars
myself.)

-- 
Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com> | The world is a fine place,
it's a miracle -- http://orebokech.com/ | and worth fighting for.
                                        | --Ernest Hemingway

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Romain Francoise]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> That talks about "viewer controls".  Emacs is not predominantly a
> viewer, but an editor.  That means that one uses the mouse often to
> place point, and the left border is more important than the right
> border.  For a mere viewer, the right placement has the minuscule
> advantage that the typical cursor image does not obscur any content.

That is a good point, but I'm not sure that 'viewer controls' refers to
read-only widgets only.  For what it's worth, the GNOME text editor
(gedit) has its scroll bar on the right.

-- 
Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com> | Last night the whole of hell
it's a miracle -- http://orebokech.com/ | came down to bathe and dine
                                        | with us.

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Geoffrey Teale]

On Monday 15 August 2005 13:08, Romain Francoise wrote:
--- %< ----
> GNOME is the GNU Desktop Environment, I think it makes sense to make
> sure that Emacs blends in that environment, so that users can feel
> comfortable with it.
---- %< -----

Is that really true?  Surely GNOME is _a_ GNU desktop environment.  What about 
GNUstep?  

There is so much free software out there now do we still have a concept of 
single desktop environment for GNU anymore?  
-- 
Geoffrey Teale
Development Team Leader
Cmed Group Ltd
E gteale@cmedresearch.com W www.cmedresearch.com

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Richard M. Stallman]

    Shouldn't vertical scroll bars be on the right side of the buffer when
    Emacs is built with the GTK toolkit?

No, Emacs should follow the user's settings (or its own defaults)
in the same way for all the tool kits.

    On Windows (and, as far as I know, on Mac OS), Emacs already places the
    scroll bar consistently with the user environment it's running in (i.e.,
    on the right).

That would seem to be a bug, but I don't care much about those systems.

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Richard M. Stallman" <rms@gnu.org>
> Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 14:44:26 -0400
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
>     On Windows (and, as far as I know, on Mac OS), Emacs already places the
>     scroll bar consistently with the user environment it's running in (i.e.,
>     on the right).
> 
> That would seem to be a bug, but I don't care much about those systems.

I think the MS-Windows ``toolkit'' simply does not allow placing the
scroll bar on the left.

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Jason Rumney]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> I think the MS-Windows ``toolkit'' simply does not allow placing the
> scroll bar on the left.

No, scroll bars are a standalone widget, you can place them where you
want. I do think that the vast majority of users of Emacs on Windows
would disagree about RMS's definition of a bug though.

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Stephan Stahl]

Hi Eli.

Eli Zaretskii said:

> I think the MS-Windows ``toolkit'' simply does not allow placing the
> scroll bar on the left.

It does.. i have configured it that way in my .emacs :)

Regards,
-- 
Stephan Stahl

Re: Default position of the vertical scroll bar w/ GTK toolkit

[Romain Francoise]

"Richard M. Stallman" <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> No, Emacs should follow the user's settings (or its own defaults)
> in the same way for all the tool kits.

I see.  Since it's easily customizable from the Show/Hide menu, it's not
really a problem anyway.

> That would seem to be a bug, but I don't care much about those
> systems.

Me neither.

Thanks,

-- 
Romain Francoise <romain@orebokech.com> | Last night the whole of hell
it's a miracle -- http://orebokech.com/ | came down to bathe and dine
                                        | with us.