Re: Gtk scrollbar: thumb too short

[Miles Bader <miles@lsi.nec.co.jp>]

Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu> writes:
>    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:

I use both, and even though I'm (very) occasionally surprised, they feel
pretty much the same to me.  I think my claim is that users don't really
worry about the details so much, as long as things basically `feel'
right, and that the differences being discussed simply aren't the sort
that will cause real problems.

> 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.

I think this is the only reasonable solution.

(1) is no good because, I _want_ an emacs scrollbar that looks like my
other GTK scrollbars, follows my GTK theme, etc.  I think many other
users feel the same way.

(2) seems like a non-starter, because by looking the same, it would end
up causing exactly the same problems that (3) would (to the extent that
there are such problemsd), only it would be worse, because such
`lookalike' implemenations are inevitably imperfect.

> 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).

I think that if this is the worry, it's groundless, because the emacs
extensions are just that -- extensions, which extrapolate existing
behavior, not really arbitrary differences in details, which is the
usual case of problems arising with lookalike implemenations.

-Miles
-- 
o The existentialist, not having a pillow, goes everywhere with the book by
  Sullivan, _I am going to spit on your graves_.