From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Scrollbar bug on OS X Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:42:37 -0400 Message-ID: References: <7ca1709813602da58a139cee58fb4c63@gmail.com> <3b9c4e2f33d37fed55f640dcafbc8d65@gmail.com> <87is31i8jq.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> <0ba853825b580f74347416c2c0b4a169@gmail.com> <87vf70ausz.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> <5b72982df8c370d3a58358de397046c8@gmail.com> <86583cd4c0fa9cf9e4a562be66bb3a55@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1112964450 32579 80.91.229.2 (8 Apr 2005 12:47:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 12:47:30 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org, snogglethorpe@gmail.com, miles@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Apr 08 14:47:27 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DJssT-0006pU-LX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 08 Apr 2005 14:46:26 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DJsRz-0003aD-0f for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:19:03 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DJsP5-0002l6-D7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:16:03 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DJsOy-0002g2-K3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:15:57 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DJsOy-0002eM-Fy for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:15:56 -0400 Original-Received: from [206.47.199.141] (helo=simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1DJspi-0002D3-Hl; Fri, 08 Apr 2005 08:43:34 -0400 Original-Received: from empanada.home ([67.68.217.126]) by simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net (InterMail vM.5.01.06.10 201-253-122-130-110-20040306) with ESMTP id <20050408124240.KGTJ1542.simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net@empanada.home>; Fri, 8 Apr 2005 08:42:40 -0400 Original-Received: by empanada.home (Postfix, from userid 502) id E83F94D5F4A; Fri, 8 Apr 2005 08:42:37 -0400 (EDT) Original-To: David Reitter In-Reply-To: <86583cd4c0fa9cf9e4a562be66bb3a55@gmail.com> (David Reitter's message of "Thu, 7 Apr 2005 20:59:23 +0100") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (darwin) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:35756 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:35756 > Consistency is extremely important. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson would disagree. There's consistency and there's consistency. In my experience, what people care about is "in which direction and by how much does my thingy move when I click with button X on part Y of the scrollbar" and "does the slider's position and size reflect the part and quantity of my thingy that is currently displayed". The size of the slider while dragging is often something they barely notice since while dragging they're not looking at the scrollbar but at the thingy instead. [ replace "thingy" with "buffer", "spreadsheet", "html page", ...] The precise size of a slider seems to only annoy GUI-fanatics (aka people who know what is "the document/window metaphor"), and the only justification I've ever heard for their complaint is "that's not how God meant it to work", which reinforces me in my belief that it's just dogmatism rather than an actual concern for the unenlightened user. As for overscrolling: yes, it has puzzled a few users occasionally, because it's not obvious where the buffer actually ends. But note that this problem is not specific to overscrolling since it already appears when viewing a buffer too small to fill the window. > While I respectfully disagree with Stefan's view that it is an "idiotic > idea" to not let the 'thumb' extend beyond the bottom of the scrollbar, The only reason why you disagree is because you haven't tried to write the code that interfaces something like Emacs with one of those silly scrollbars. After working on such code you realize that GUI guidelines might be great, but they shouldn't be "cast in code" directly in the GUI library because there are always exceptions. Stefan