No horizontal scrollbar in Firefox

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
vsim
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Joined: November 13th, 2008, 3:59 am

Re: No horizontal scrollbar in Firefox

Post by vsim »

No thanks. It's not *that* annoying. But if it was changed in FF it would be an improvement IMO. At least show scroll bars at the bottom of the viewable area, not of the frame, this clearly seems to be the way it should be done. Tell me one good reason why you'd want the bar to be hidden, once it's there.
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Stifu
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Joined: July 13th, 2007, 8:02 am

Re: No horizontal scrollbar in Firefox

Post by Stifu »

vsim wrote:No thanks. It's not *that* annoying. But if it was changed in FF it would be an improvement IMO. At least show scroll bars at the bottom of the viewable area, not of the frame, this clearly seems to be the way it should be done. Tell me one good reason why you'd want the bar to be hidden, once it's there.

To quote mattcoz: "BECAUSE THE PAGE SAID SO.". And as schapel said, the browser can't guess what developers want to do. I thought we already made our point clear, but I'll have a last go at it... Just because you see a certain page that'd be better displayed a certain way doesn't mean it'd also be good for every other page of the web. What if the page has several frames, and that each needs to be scrolled independently? That's actually what frames are all about: independent pages displayed together. One could have a strict valid doctype, the other could be an HTML mess... Loosening the bounds between them would be opening the gates of hell.
There is a reason why frames are considered bad practice, you know... Still, I know they're not a thing of the past yet, sadly. But really, you're asking for a major change, you *should* know it'd break thousands of pages (countless pages are designed closely checking how browsers behave)... But even if it didn't break any page, it'd still be a bad idea, because browsers should follow what the pages tell them to do.

If such hacks started getting implemented, you could add some more hundreds then, for many other situations (like, say, the font color is too close to the background color, let's automatically change these colors because we know better than the webmaster).

You're looking at this the wrong way. It's always better to fix the problem at its source, rather than adding more bloat...
Look, it's always been the same before... The less strict you are, the more troubles you'll get in the end. History has proven this countless times, with HTML and PHP, for example - their creators regretted having been too lenient, and later tried to make things better by making things more strict, but we're still paying the price for their mistakes...
vsim
Posts: 10
Joined: November 13th, 2008, 3:59 am

Re: No horizontal scrollbar in Firefox

Post by vsim »

Stifu wrote:
vsim wrote:Tell me one good reason why you'd want the bar to be hidden, once it's there.

To quote mattcoz: "BECAUSE THE PAGE SAID SO.".

I'm not sure the page said it absolutely wanted the scroll bar of the frames to be hidden. A frame just says it wants to have a scroll bar. I agree it's supposed, currently, to be at the frame bottom. But I guess it shouldn't matter for the vast majority of pages. But maybe you're right and it's not so, you probably know better than I do.
OTOH, you know, this thing with not breaking legacy code / data isn't absolute and shouldn't stand in the way of good changes. There are way of making good changes happen, with some work by all parties involved, provided it's better for everybody in the long run. I'm sure you know them better than myself. IMO displaying scroll bars visibly is a change that should be done. But maybe I'm wrong.

Stifu wrote:What if the page has several frames, and that each need to be scrolled independently?

What's the problem ? Every frame that has a horiz. scroll bar will have it displayed at the bottom of its visible area, instead of it being hidden. It's common sense actually.

Stifu wrote:But really, you're asking for a major change, you *should* know it'd break thousands of pages (countless pages are designed closely checking how browsers behave)... But even if it didn't break any page, it'd still be a bad idea, because browsers should follow what the pages tell them to do.

As I said above, it's not what the page tells them to do, actually in this case I'd say it's definitely not what the page really wants. And yes, I know better than the developer what he had in mind. :)

Stifu wrote:If such hacks started getting implemented, you could add some more hundreds then, for many other situations (like, say, the font color is too close to the background color, let's automatically change these colors because we know better than the webmaster).

Good idea. :) Enable the user to change font / bgr. color for when they are too close. Of course, let him do this graphically, not via some obscure CSS file. (BTW, isn't this CSS actually the same thing, second-guessing the developer ? It's just more complicated to use.)

Stifu wrote:You're looking at this the wrong way. It's always better to fix the problem at its source, rather than adding more bloat...

Absolutely not, in this case. It would be definitely better IMO that scroll bars are always visible when they're there. I'd guess it's a flaw in the initial design. Thus, in the long run everybody would benefit from the change (actually correction).
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Stifu
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Re: No horizontal scrollbar in Firefox

Post by Stifu »

vsim wrote:
Stifu wrote:If such hacks started getting implemented, you could add some more hundreds then, for many other situations (like, say, the font color is too close to the background color, let's automatically change these colors because we know better than the webmaster).

Good idea. :) Enable the user to change font / bgr. color for when they are too close. Of course, let him do this graphically, not via some obscure CSS file.

I had foreseen you'd say it's a good idea. :p
But you're making things sound much more simple than they are. What if the webmaster chose his text to fade in/out smoothly, using JavaScript? Or if it was an online writer/designer application, in which you'd be testing different colors? AJAX-powered apps are more and more common... Even if there was only one prompt that you'd dismiss forever for the concerned site, it'd still be annoying. And if it wasn't a prompt, it probably wouldn't be discoverable. No matter what, it'd be more bloat in Firefox.

vsim wrote:(BTW, isn't this CSS actually the same thing, second-guessing the developer ? It's just more complicated to use.)

The way I see it, it's not really second-guessing the developer, it's adapting the browser behavior to your own tastes. And the user does it himself, so he takes responsibility for it. For example, some people may not want to have any scrollbars showing, and prefer to scroll in other ways (autoscroll, keyboard, whatever)... That's good for them, but only for them.

Too lazy to argue about each point, it doesn't sound like I'll change your mind anyway.
schapel
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Re: No horizontal scrollbar in Firefox

Post by schapel »

vsim wrote:Absolutely not, in this case. It would be definitely better IMO that scroll bars are always visible when they're there. I'd guess it's a flaw in the initial design. Thus, in the long run everybody would benefit from the change (actually correction).

You should argue with the W3C, because they make the standards that Firefox follows. Or you can take the easier path and simply complain to the few sites that you experience the problem with.
vsim
Posts: 10
Joined: November 13th, 2008, 3:59 am

Re: No horizontal scrollbar in Firefox

Post by vsim »

Right, maybe I'll try telling the W3C. Or maybe not. I'll see.

Stifu wrote:
vsim wrote:(BTW, isn't this CSS actually the same thing, second-guessing the developer ? It's just more complicated to use.)

The way I see it, it's not really second-guessing the developer, it's adapting the browser behavior to your own tastes. And the user does it himself, so he takes responsibility for it.

I certainly agree with you here. Except that I think some features that might be more useful to the average user would better be exposed in a graphical way. Like, change some colors or maybe request that the scroll bar still be displayed regardless of what the page said. That's still adapting the browser to your own tastes, and IMO it'd be better for the user if he could do it graphically instead of by CSS.
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