[sugar] scrollbar arrows

Eben Eliason eben.eliason at gmail.com
Mon Apr 7 21:27:50 EDT 2008


I'm going to attempt to greatly abbreviate a response on a topic that
has seen its share of conversation by noting 3 things: an argument for
the omission, the proposed solution, and a temporary solution.

1) The arrows at top and bottom of the scrollbars were left out
because, in most cases, they would appear directly adjacent the screen
 corners, where Frame activation occurs.  This in conjunction with our
personal distaste for trying to position the cursor over small targets
caused us to seek alternative solutions.

2) We consciously omitted them, instead placing our bets on the "grab"
key which, when held, will turn the touchpad into a panning mechanism
for the underlying view, allowing one to move small amounts in any
direction with ease, akin to the two-finger scrolling on Mac laptops,
or like a modified grab-and-drag as in some graphics applications.

3) As the grab key hasn't yet been implemented due to issues (or
unfamiliarity) at the X level, the temporary workaround is to simply
press the arrow keys, which should serve the same function without all
the fuss of trying to position the cursor over a little button.  My
apologies for not having a better answer to this at the moment; I
think we're making some progress on the grab key, and I sincerely hope
that we will have at least a minimal implementation working in the not
too distant future.

- Eben


On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 7:08 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti <mpgritti at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's currently "omitted" in the Sugar theme. Eben can comment on the
>  reason of that choice...
>
>  Marco
>
>
>
>  On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:53 PM, Mikus Grinbergs <mikus at bga.com> wrote:
>  > Looked at the ePals activity.  On my G1G1, the screen text it
>  >  presented was offset.   The only means available to me to center the
>  >  text was to drag the slider within the horizontal scrollbar.
>  >
>  >  In typical Linux windows, the scrollbars have arrows at their ends.
>  >  By clicking on these, the material on the screen can be scrolled
>  >  "slightly".  I prefer to click on such arrows, rather than attempt
>  >  to "fine tune" text position by dragging the scrollbar slider.
>  >
>  >  Did the ePals developers choose to leave out 'scrollbar arrows', or
>  >  is the Sugar interface so "simplified" as to omit them entirely ?
>  >
>  >  mikus
>  >
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