Why are scrolling optinos being depreciated or made difficul

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
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slickrcbd
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Joined: September 1st, 2010, 1:57 am

Why are scrolling optinos being depreciated or made difficul

Post by slickrcbd »

I've noticed a trend with web pages such as E-bay, Hotmail, and Epic Games and many more.
They like to make micro-thin scrollbars that are a pixel hunt to use (if they show them at all), then they like to disable the space bar, Page Up and Page Down keys, or make them stop working half way through the page so you are "stuck" on some graphic or animation (especially Epic), or in Hotmail's case for no apparent reason at all.
The only thing that works for scrolling is the mouse wheel, which doesn't advance you a whole screen at a time.

Then there are the pages with all the crap that "floats" or "sticks" (not sure on the term) on the screen and covers up stuff. Click on the scroll bar, hit the space bar, or hit page down and the menu and the ads cover up the top lines of the content, forcing you to hit the up arrow or scroll the mouse back down to read those lines you missed. Why can't the page down take into account the actual viewport and show the next lines of text instead of hiding it under the floating stuff?
It's why I hate "sticky" menus instead of stuff that scrolls off the screen.

Any idea why scrolling is getting more and more frustrating? For decades it was simple, hit the space bar or page down to advance a screen full, or use the scroll bar. Now those options are being taken away in favor of the mouse wheel, which even in 2020 is not universal as trackballs are still made and often omit the wheels.
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Grumpus
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Joined: October 19th, 2007, 4:23 am
Location: ... Da' Swamp

Re: Why are scrolling optinos being depreciated or made diff

Post by Grumpus »

Just a thought, are not the scroll bars, their visibility and width controlled by the system?
In Firefox there is a setting to use the system theme and settings, located in about: config.
Depending on the system some have the ability to modify the scroll width.
browser.display.use_system_colors
extensions.activeThemeID

In settings /general/language and appearance also may have some effect.
Doesn't matter what you say, it's wrong for a toaster to walk around the house and talk to you
slickrcbd
Posts: 553
Joined: September 1st, 2010, 1:57 am

Re: Why are scrolling optinos being depreciated or made diff

Post by slickrcbd »

First thing I've done is turn off "auto hide the scroll bars" and try my best to get rid of the itsy-bitsy teeny tiny scrollbars.
Microsith doesn't make it easy, because they occasionally ignore the setting in accessibility options unless you turn on the ugly high-contrast mode, and that has its own problems.

My real beef is that I'm reading and scrolling with space bar as has been a habit since Netscape 1.1N and I'm pretty sure I recall it worked in Mosaic as well for space bar and page down to scroll down and suddenly I hit the space bar and nothing happens.
WHY?
Suddenly I have to move over and use the mouse, either find the scroll bar or use the mouse wheel as the wheel is the only thing that works consistently these days.
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Grumpus
Posts: 13232
Joined: October 19th, 2007, 4:23 am
Location: ... Da' Swamp

Re: Why are scrolling optinos being depreciated or made diff

Post by Grumpus »

You're going to hate this - I just tried it and this page moved top to bottom.
Look at smooth scroll other in about:config
You might try some of the other settings after searching for scroll in about:config
Keep notes on any changes on paper
Doesn't matter what you say, it's wrong for a toaster to walk around the house and talk to you
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