Re: Scroll bars.

[stephen farrell <stephen farrell org>]

> > Please, dont doom yet another interface with the same old stupid
> > scrollbars used in almost ever GUI out there.

Well... I think there is definitely some truth to this... but try not
to be gratuitously different, either.  E.g., NeXT, which for the most
part has a near-perfect ui, did something really dumb:  They decided
that pageup and pagedown were unnecessary.  No pageup and pagedown
keys on the keyboard.  Hitting in the gutter of the scrollbar didn't
do page-up or page-down, instead it moves approximately that far into
the document.  Result: some apps added another set of buttons for
pageup and pagedown, which is fine, but it's not part of the interface 
standard and lacking in many apps.  it was an oversimplification that
didn't work.  Also, my point is: don't break the pageup/pagedown
behavior of hitting in the scrollbar gutter... it is *really*
irritating.

I like the openlook at sgi/motif way of leaving a footprint where the
scrollbar used to be.... How about doing the same thing visually to
the whole scroll pane: once you start scrolling, slightly grey-out the
area of the document that previously filled the pane; ungrey it out
when you stop scrolling (perhaps gradually over 3 seconds)--this will
give great visual feedback on "where you were", something very
important for scrolling!

Also, FWIW I like right-hand scroll bars and I think it's b/c I'm
right handed... anyway the side should probably be a user-option in an
ideal world (and is'nt that what gnome will be?)

--

Steve Farrell