ChatGPT just wrote me a beautiful short post about the merits of the scrollbar as a UI control. Guess I’ll toss it and write a rambly-yet-passionate one instead. 😓
Microblog
I keep saying this but… UI developers, please remember that the scrollbar isn’t only a visual indicator but a draggable, interactive control.
Don’t hide it with no easy way to reveal it. And please don’t make it so thin that it’s unduly difficult to click (yes some ppl use scrollbars this way).
Don’t assume a scroll wheel/ball/gesture is 100% available or accessible to the user.
How many frontend engineers does it take to make an icon link in Vuetify? Turns out it’s 5.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s amazing how much nicer RSS feeds and a Mastodon account is than mindlessly scrolling Twitter.
@andy@bell.bz I cannot describe how much I needed to hear this. Thanks!
I see the light at the end of the tunnel…
Got a nice little planet avatar from @heyheymomo! Using for my omg.lol Discord avatar.
Currently lost somewhere deep down in a recursive Vue component hell.
Web-based apps have the powerful ability to be styled by the user (via user CSS styles). I'm wondering if there are any apps out there that purposely style their interface so that it is conducive to user customization.
@andy@bell.bz This isn’t meant to take away from anything you’ve said but I wonder if a lot of JS frameworks are in apps that aren’t publicly accessible (like in my case, a Vue app used by NASA internally). I suspect that’s where a lot of the uses are but idk, that still probably wouldn’t change the numbers that much.
In order to continue receiving personal care services (which are necessary for me to live and work) I have to make bad financial decisions like turning down my employer’s 401(k) plan. RIP 💀 🇺🇸
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Pulling my hair out over here trying to reliably reproduce Schrodinger’s bug.
I always hear, "When they go low, we get high." 🌿
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Fangs! is a sci-fi fantasy concept album. It tells a story in bits and pieces. To this day the fans are trying to figure out what it all means. https://open.spotify.com/album/06Ea5K0IZ4EZP7b3j9zl8G?si=qTXpjyDYQkyW6JiucvVECQ
I still haven't gotten around to writing a blog post about scrollbars. But it is definitely a Thing—websites and applications as a general trend are neglecting this extremely useful bit of user interface.
As an aside, shoutout to @chriscoyier for this big chonker of a scrollbar. https://chriscoyier.net/ 🧡
The backstory is that I can't use a mouse wheel or trackpad. Most of the time, I need to grab the scrollbar with the mouse.
Not only is this rather tedious, but because of what I call the War on Scrollbars™, sometimes this isn't possible—they either disappear or they are so thin they are too difficult to grab.
Sometimes I use the keyboard, sometimes I use speech recognition. But the easiest and best way for me is to simply click and drag the entire scrollable area, just like on iOS.
Mac developers: do any of you know if it is possible to make a utility that would allow you to click and drag your mouse pointer to scroll scrollable areas in macOS similar to using a finger on an iOS device? (Not asking you to make it, just wondering if the APIs exist that would make it possible).
I need this as an accessibility utility. Thanks to the extensibility of the web, I have it there. But I've been spoiled. I want it at the OS level now.
Please boost!
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/scroll_anywhere