Just a general question I'm putting out there...

Now that NSScrollView always hides its scrollbars even when 
-setAutohidesScrollers: is NO if you have a trackpad, how does a user grab the 
thumb to drag it using a mouse?

You can't see the thumb unless the bar is visible, and if it's not visible you 
can't click it. To make it visible you have to scroll which shows the bars, but 
only for a short time (< 0.5 second). This means that your only option is to 
use a scroll wheel or trackpad to make the bars show, then quickly click onto 
the thumb before they disappear. It's really hard to do. What if you generally 
prefer to use a mouse, even if there is a trackpad? What if your view is such 
that skimming through it by dragging the thumb is the most usable way to use 
it? What if the constant presence of the thumb on a very wide (or tall) scroll 
view is actually a really, really useful piece of information that would help 
the user even if they do have a trackpad?

I can find no way to force my scrollers to stay visible unless I turn off the 
trackpad altogether (which overall seems like a completely unrelated thing). On 
a laptop it might be impossible to turn off the trackpad for all I know - I'm 
using a desktop with a magic trackpad attached, but I also prefer to use my 
laptop with an external mouse plugged in. There's no setting in System 
Preferences/Trackpad for disabling just this auto-hiding feature of scrollers 
which would solve it more elegantly.

A case of missing the usability wood for the trees?

--Graham




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