10 ms·

There are 15-year old bugs in Firefox on scrollbar designs that are fixed under Chrome/Webkit. Often times custom scrolling is used to fix that.

acdha 10y ago
Can you provide more details about what you're talking about?
- mozumder 10y ago
  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790 We could remove 90% of custom scrollbar javascript if this was fixed.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Have you (or anyone else) offered a patch? Skimming that bugzilla page, it looks like in 15 years nobody has cared enough to even submit a patch.
    - vog 10y ago
      It seems there's only a small overlap between the people suffering and the people being able to solve this. If a "normal" web developer struggles with that, they can provide JavaScript workarounds, perhaps many, but they usually aren't that intimate with C/C++ and the whole framework on which Firefox is based. Also, as with most projects, if a webdev can solve this problem with a workaround now, they don't invest time to provide a proper long-term solution. If if they are capable of improving Firefox, they'd still need to create the JS workaround, because short-term is what they are paid for.
  - gkya 10y ago
    Maybe fix it then? Or better yet, don't fiddle with users' UI items. The scrollbar is the same everywhere on my desktop, why fiddle with a thing that the user's really used to?
    - aidos 10y ago
      Because designs on the web are different from those on desktops and big white scrollbars on a dark design look horrific? Also, because you want your design to work nicely irrespective of the browser and scrollbars and dropdowns make that really hard. It sucks, but there's a reason that people choose to try to replace these elements (unfortunately, with mixed results). For future reference, you can actually get rid of nasty scrollbars without ruining the normal scroll behaviour by having an outer div(overflow:hidden, width:x) containing the content div(width:x+scrollbar-width).
      - E6300 10y ago
        > Because designs on the web are different from those on desktops and big white scrollbars on a dark design look horrific? Where do you draw the line, though? The scrollbar is not part of the website, it's part of the window where the website is being rendered, and the window is itself part of a desktop environment. Would you try to override the look and feel of the desktop environment if you could?
        vxNsr 10y ago
        >Would you try to override the look and feel of the desktop environment if you could? The answer to this question is almost always yes by short sighted designers who try to control scrolling behavior. In fact optimally they'd like to control your hardware look and feel also.
        aidos 10y ago
        There's a difference between changing behaviour and changing the design. I'd imagine that most designers that design without scroll bars have no idea what the devs are going to do to change behaviour. I hate it when the scrolling feels unnatural. At the same time, it's good when the design looks nice. It's possible to achieve both of those things.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - codedokode 10y ago
    Would not it be better to style the scrollbar with CSS only in browsers that support it? That would be an example of progressive enhancement and adaptive markup. For me, fast scrolling is more important than colored scrollbar.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      No.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    I'll give you three guesses which I care about more, a scroll bar that matches your site colors or responsive scrolling.
    - mozumder 10y ago
      You're not the site designer, though. Guess what the site designer cares about? Their site is their branding, not yours, not Mozilla's.
      - cmg 10y ago
        If the "designer" only cares about the look of their site, then they're an artist, not a designer. Usability and accessibility are intrinsic parts of web design.
      - tedunangst 10y ago
        Obvious solution is obvious. If the user is using Firefox, instead of replacing the scroll bars, replace the page with a message telling them to switch to a better browser. That way everybody wins and it's so much less work.
        ergothus 10y ago
        Or more obviously - if a browser works a certain way, and the user has chosen to use it, let it be. If the designer doesn't like it, well - the user chose to use this browser, and they choose to use your site. If you start trying to change one of their choices, they might change the other.
      - gumby 10y ago
        And if their brand is "confusing and hard to use" or worse, "glitchy" then I guess making their own scroll bars is appropriate. Back when splash pages were popular I pretty much closed any tab that presented a splash page -- life is too short. Likewise whizzy Flash sites. What I miss about Flash is that it was an excellent bozo avoidance system.
      - thescribe 10y ago
yoasif_ 10y ago
The solution here is simple -- lobby W3C to include custom scrollbar colors in the CSS specs, then call out Mozilla for not following the standards. As it is, colored scrollbars are not part of any standard, so asking for them are like asking Google or Mozilla to support ActiveX for your webapp -- if you rely on non-standard, proprietary features, you're locked in to your non-standard browser.

acdha 10y ago

Can you provide more details about what you're talking about?

mozumder 10y ago
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790 We could remove 90% of custom scrollbar javascript if this was fixed.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Have you (or anyone else) offered a patch? Skimming that bugzilla page, it looks like in 15 years nobody has cared enough to even submit a patch.
  - vog 10y ago
    It seems there's only a small overlap between the people suffering and the people being able to solve this. If a "normal" web developer struggles with that, they can provide JavaScript workarounds, perhaps many, but they usually aren't that intimate with C/C++ and the whole framework on which Firefox is based. Also, as with most projects, if a webdev can solve this problem with a workaround now, they don't invest time to provide a proper long-term solution. If if they are capable of improving Firefox, they'd still need to create the JS workaround, because short-term is what they are paid for.
- gkya 10y ago
  Maybe fix it then? Or better yet, don't fiddle with users' UI items. The scrollbar is the same everywhere on my desktop, why fiddle with a thing that the user's really used to?
  - aidos 10y ago
    Because designs on the web are different from those on desktops and big white scrollbars on a dark design look horrific? Also, because you want your design to work nicely irrespective of the browser and scrollbars and dropdowns make that really hard. It sucks, but there's a reason that people choose to try to replace these elements (unfortunately, with mixed results). For future reference, you can actually get rid of nasty scrollbars without ruining the normal scroll behaviour by having an outer div(overflow:hidden, width:x) containing the content div(width:x+scrollbar-width).
    - E6300 10y ago
      > Because designs on the web are different from those on desktops and big white scrollbars on a dark design look horrific? Where do you draw the line, though? The scrollbar is not part of the website, it's part of the window where the website is being rendered, and the window is itself part of a desktop environment. Would you try to override the look and feel of the desktop environment if you could?
      - vxNsr 10y ago
        >Would you try to override the look and feel of the desktop environment if you could? The answer to this question is almost always yes by short sighted designers who try to control scrolling behavior. In fact optimally they'd like to control your hardware look and feel also.
        aidos 10y ago
        There's a difference between changing behaviour and changing the design. I'd imagine that most designers that design without scroll bars have no idea what the devs are going to do to change behaviour. I hate it when the scrolling feels unnatural. At the same time, it's good when the design looks nice. It's possible to achieve both of those things.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- codedokode 10y ago
  Would not it be better to style the scrollbar with CSS only in browsers that support it? That would be an example of progressive enhancement and adaptive markup. For me, fast scrolling is more important than colored scrollbar.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    No.
- tedunangst 10y ago
  I'll give you three guesses which I care about more, a scroll bar that matches your site colors or responsive scrolling.
  - mozumder 10y ago
    You're not the site designer, though. Guess what the site designer cares about? Their site is their branding, not yours, not Mozilla's.
    - cmg 10y ago
      If the "designer" only cares about the look of their site, then they're an artist, not a designer. Usability and accessibility are intrinsic parts of web design.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      Obvious solution is obvious. If the user is using Firefox, instead of replacing the scroll bars, replace the page with a message telling them to switch to a better browser. That way everybody wins and it's so much less work.
      - ergothus 10y ago
        Or more obviously - if a browser works a certain way, and the user has chosen to use it, let it be. If the designer doesn't like it, well - the user chose to use this browser, and they choose to use your site. If you start trying to change one of their choices, they might change the other.
    - gumby 10y ago
      And if their brand is "confusing and hard to use" or worse, "glitchy" then I guess making their own scroll bars is appropriate. Back when splash pages were popular I pretty much closed any tab that presented a splash page -- life is too short. Likewise whizzy Flash sites. What I miss about Flash is that it was an excellent bozo avoidance system.
    - thescribe 10y ago

yoasif_ 10y ago

The solution here is simple -- lobby W3C to include custom scrollbar colors in the CSS specs, then call out Mozilla for not following the standards. As it is, colored scrollbars are not part of any standard, so asking for them are like asking Google or Mozilla to support ActiveX for your webapp -- if you rely on non-standard, proprietary features, you're locked in to your non-standard browser.