Re: scroll bar and drop down list usability



>One of the interesting scroll bar ideas I've seen involves
>putting what amounts to a bar graph into the scroll bar where the
>height of the bar is proportional to the length of the line that would
>be displayed.

Like a mini photo of the doc, I guess. Adobe Acrobat viewer has something
like this, but only if the PDF has preview info, and in any case, it wastes
too much space to show it.

>With many text files you are editing, you know enough about the structure 
>that even this simple visual cue makes it very easy to figure out where 
>to scroll or click to.

And with docs that have images, it could draw a line in different color, or
a rectangle (varying with size).

>I saw this almost 15 years ago being done by Mike Hawley and Sam Leffler:
>why this idea hasn't been picked up in the meanwhile is a mystery to me.

I also wonder why lot of interesting things never caught, while we see lot
of stupid things, that do not really help, or help few. Maybe cos it is too
much for the user? Too much for the coder? Dancing clips are easier, sure. ;]

GSR
 





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