Autoscroll is middle-clicking on a page and moving the mouse, so that the page scrolls in that direction without any effort.
I can see why autoscroll is useful for some power users. But for other users, including other power users, this feature is annoying. An often cited example is trying to middle-click a link but misclicking. This happens either because of actually misclicking, or accidentally scrolling (for most users, the middle mouse button is also the scroll wheel). This activates autoscroll. The page can scroll off, but even if it does not, it requires a second click to deactivate autoscroll before the link can be clicked again. The root issue behind this is not misclicking, but the unintuitive multiple meanings for the middle mouse button. Middle clicking on a tab can only close the tab, and this is intuitive because the tab is a distinct visual element. Middle clicking on a navigation button can only open the previous/next page in a new tab. This too is a distinct visual element. However, links are not distinct visual elements, and don't even need to appear as links at all. There can also be non-link elements that appear as a link. This actually presents two problems: how can the user indicate he wants autoscroll when the mouse is over a link, and how can the user indicate he does not want autoscroll when not over a link? There have been several issues created about this in the Chromium issue tracker. All of them have been merged into issue 12478, which has been closed WontFix. However, there has not been any explanation at all about why an option to disable autoscroll, hidden or not, will not be added. Can the reason for not implementing the option please be explained? Or even better, can it be implemented? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Chromium Discussion mailing list: [email protected] View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-discuss -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
