Re: Flipping for scrolled windows

[Steve Underwood <steveu coppice org>]

Owen Taylor wrote:
> 
> Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir technion ac il> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, Pablo Saratxaga wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 12:47:51AM +0800, Steve Underwood wrote:
> > >
> > > > > Another patch I've had sitting around for a while. This adds
> > > > > directional flipping to GtkScrolledWindow, so the scrollbars
> > > > > appear on the opposite side for RTL languages.
> > >
> > > > Those who loved NextStep know the only sane place for the scroll bar is
> > > > on the left - or at the bottom for vertical CJK :)
> >
> > What is the reason for the scroll-bar to be on the left?
> 
> Straying off-topic, the reason to prefer the placement of the
> scrollbar on the left (especially for terminal windows and the like),
> is if I have two overlapped windows:

Why do you say you are straying off-topic? It seems 100% on topic to me.
The scroll bars on the right are very inefficient for an L-to-R
language. Left hand scroll bars can save considerable time, as I found
very well as a NextStep user. If this really mirrors for a R-to-L
language, then perhaps right hand scroll bars would be better for a
R-to-L language. It would require a little ergonomics work to really
tell. I would guess than a R-to-L user's windows would typically mirror
the layout you show below, to I guess a mirrored scroll bar would be
best.

When doing heavy code editing under NextStep, I would say that left hand
scroll bars could improve my productivity by 1 to 2 hours per week. Not
bad for such a simple change, and the work flow feels less stressful
too.
 
>  +-------------------+
>  | $                 |
>  | $ ls  +---------------+
>  | asdf  |               |
>  # asfass|               |
>  # asdfdd|               |
>  #       #               |
>  #       #               |
>  #       #               |
>  #       #               |
>  |       #               |
>  |       #               |
>  +-------|               |
>          |               |
>          +---------------+
> 
> I don't have to choose betwen seeing the scrollbar or the beginning
> of the lines on the window beneath. The beginning of the line is
> usually vastly more sigificant than then end of the line.
> 
> If you have:
> 
>  a) click to focus
>  b) multiple scrollbars within one window
> 
> Then this doesn't matter so much.

Not quite so much, maybe, but there is still substantial benefit in the
left hand scroll bar. I think we only use right hand scroll bars because
someone way back did it, nobody bothered with any ergonomic assessment,
and now its written in tablets of stone that right hand bars are right.

Regards,
Steve