Re: [Usability] Mouse-Gab Scrolling

[John Kodis <kodis jagunet com>]

On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 07:03:50AM -0500, P G wrote:

> When X's mouse grab key is pressed while clicking Button1 inside a
> window, the pointer "grabs" the window so that subsequent dragging
> moves the window with the pointer.

I think that this would be a great usability improvement.  As you say,
it would provide a scroll mechanism that is more versatile than using
a mouse wheel and more convenient than hunting for the little scroll
arrows.

I've suggested this on the galeon developer's list, and gotten the
response that it could be slow since scrolling diagonally currently
requires two complete redraws -- one vertically and another
horizontally.  I don't think this would bother me.  After all, several
redraws would still be much faster than reaching for the scroll bar
under most circumstances.

My only quibble is that I'd prefer a key binding that didn't require a
modifier key, at least for the much more common scroll operation.  I'd
suggest using a button-2-drag event to scroll (assuming that this
could be established without interfering with the traditional "paste"
binding of a button-2-release event), with something like
control-button-2-drag used for the less common window resize
operation.

Best wishes in getting your proposal adopted.  I'd also love to see
this become the standard behavior.

-- John Kodis.