RE: Scrollbars and arrows; also the mouse.

["Gerry Chu" <gerrychu bigfoot com>]

> One possible scrollbar configuration that I did not grep in the
> discussion is that of the JX toolkit - place the arrows together, but
> place a pair at both ends of the scrollbar. The arrows for any direction
> are 'linked' so that pressing one also makes the other pressed. (I don't
> recall how the rest of the bar works.)

These scrollbars are very quick and convienent.  It's really a joy to use.
Macs and BeOS have this type of scrollbar, and soon KDE will adopt this type
of scrollbar.  KDE has chosen to put just a up button at the top of the
scrollbar and a set of up and down buttons on the bottom, which I think is a
good implementation.  The page for the jx scrollbars are at
<http://www.newplanetsoftware.com/jx/scrollbar.html>.  Has the "bookmark"
locations on the scrollbar that someone thought of earlier too.  Very nice.

> The location of the scrollbar may best go the way of the MDI and the
> notebook tabs; make a gnomecc item for it. Don't forget the weirdos,
> whoever you think they may be. (I disabled those in emacs and jade
> doesn't have any.)

I'm still thinking about where to draw the line in regards to
customizability.  Somebody (sorry, I forgot whom!) said on this list that we
shouldn't customize things because they're difficult decisions to make, and
I fully agree with that point.  Target features and customizabitily not for
a small minority, but for the "average GNOME user."  Can't make everyone
happy, unfortunately.

> Any number of design elements could be done this way, including the type
> of arrows. Perhaps a gnome-themer (a la sawfish-themer) should be
> created; perchance whoever is working on mega(meta?)themes is also
> working on this? If not: "Oh, great! Something else to do!"

I saw a screenshot of a rudimentery beginning for a GTK themer, but since
then I forgot were the website was.  A Google search didn't help either :-(

> As for the mouse buttons: Please, don't break the X mouse model! It's
> already enough to have to switch between  the keyboard and the mouse for
> any task; if I have to use C-(X|C|V) to cut/copy/paste, I'll toss my
> keyboard for a chord board and go to work on a 1600x1200 pixel contact
> lens. Indeed, copy part of the dtterm model: typical X button setup, but
> the 3rd button's popup menu duplicates the terminal menubar. Simply make
> the third button's popup show cut/copy/paste/(drag?) if there is an an
> active selection. (I think CDE on Solaris does this. It's been a while
> though.)

Yes.


Cheers,

Gerry Chu
gerrychu@bigfoot.com