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I've had the setting flipped to always show them since they added that nonsense. It looks a bit more subtle, and isn't brightly colored, but it serves the impor

I've had the setting flipped to always show them since they added that nonsense. It looks a bit more subtle, and isn't brightly colored, but it serves the important role of showing at a glance how long the page is. The backwards scrolling is way more obnoxious though, and I rage every time I use someone else's Mac or do a fresh install.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Aye, me too. Though I prefer when they were a little more obvious - now they're a background visual indicator, and essentially deprecated as a control, for being too narrow. Most of the times I encounter backward scrolling on someone else's Mac, it's only there because they never realised Settings let you invert it to sane and useful!
- jacobolus 7y ago
  The “backward” scrolling (a better name might be “content scrolling” as compared to “window scrolling”) was changed because the “forward” way does not work for scrolling content on a multi-touch display. If the content moves in the opposite direction from the finger, it completely breaks the illusion that the fingers are directly controlling the content. People switching back and forth between Macs and iPhones or iPads initially found it very inconvenient/frustrating to have window scrolling on a touchpad and content scrolling on a touchscreen. It was decided that switching the Mac to be consistent with iOS would cause momentary frustration for Mac users (it requires a few days of retraining to get used to) but would be less frustrating for most users than preserving two inconsistent behaviors into perpetuity. The option to keep the Mac on window scrolling was included to mollify those few Mac users unwilling to spend a few days or weeks re-training themselves to a reversed gesture.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    The problem is that my mental model for scrolling on a touchpad is different than scrolling on a phone/tablet. My finger isn't touching the content, it's touching a scroll device. It never stops feeling backwards to use a touchpad and have the scroll go backwards.
    - jacobolus 7y ago
      Anecdotally, several people I have talked to about this had no problem with the new behavior (after a relatively short re-training time), but did find switching between touchcreens and touchpads with opposite behaviors frustrating. If you do have a problem, then you can switch it in System Preferences. Everyone wins.
    - dsego 7y ago
      On a macbook with a big touchpad it sure as heck feels like touching the content. Esp. with fluid gestures (not abrupt like windows) and pinching it feels very physical. And then flicking with two fingers and the inertia of the page that keeps on scrolling because you pushed it very hard feels satisfying. On windows it just feels fake.
    - IanCal 7y ago
      Interesting, it very quickly became so normal to me it felt odd we'd ever done it the other way. I find it very weird working the other way now.
  - Zelizz 7y ago
    The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that there appear to be two settings, one for trackpad, and one for a mouse scrollwheel. You can find them in different locations. They change the same value, though. You can't have natural trackpad scrolling and "pull the wheel towards you to scroll down" scrolling at the same time without a 3rd-party application.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Aye, me too. Though I prefer when they were a little more obvious - now they're a background visual indicator, and essentially deprecated as a control, for being too narrow. Most of the times I encounter backward scrolling on someone else's Mac, it's only there because they never realised Settings let you invert it to sane and useful!

jacobolus 7y ago
The “backward” scrolling (a better name might be “content scrolling” as compared to “window scrolling”) was changed because the “forward” way does not work for scrolling content on a multi-touch display. If the content moves in the opposite direction from the finger, it completely breaks the illusion that the fingers are directly controlling the content. People switching back and forth between Macs and iPhones or iPads initially found it very inconvenient/frustrating to have window scrolling on a touchpad and content scrolling on a touchscreen. It was decided that switching the Mac to be consistent with iOS would cause momentary frustration for Mac users (it requires a few days of retraining to get used to) but would be less frustrating for most users than preserving two inconsistent behaviors into perpetuity. The option to keep the Mac on window scrolling was included to mollify those few Mac users unwilling to spend a few days or weeks re-training themselves to a reversed gesture.
- jandrese 7y ago
  The problem is that my mental model for scrolling on a touchpad is different than scrolling on a phone/tablet. My finger isn't touching the content, it's touching a scroll device. It never stops feeling backwards to use a touchpad and have the scroll go backwards.
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    Anecdotally, several people I have talked to about this had no problem with the new behavior (after a relatively short re-training time), but did find switching between touchcreens and touchpads with opposite behaviors frustrating. If you do have a problem, then you can switch it in System Preferences. Everyone wins.
  - dsego 7y ago
    On a macbook with a big touchpad it sure as heck feels like touching the content. Esp. with fluid gestures (not abrupt like windows) and pinching it feels very physical. And then flicking with two fingers and the inertia of the page that keeps on scrolling because you pushed it very hard feels satisfying. On windows it just feels fake.
  - IanCal 7y ago
    Interesting, it very quickly became so normal to me it felt odd we'd ever done it the other way. I find it very weird working the other way now.
- Zelizz 7y ago
  The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that there appear to be two settings, one for trackpad, and one for a mouse scrollwheel. You can find them in different locations. They change the same value, though. You can't have natural trackpad scrolling and "pull the wheel towards you to scroll down" scrolling at the same time without a 3rd-party application.