5 ms·
> Scroolbars are useful for making large coarse leaps within a page in an instant, while scroll wheels are good for accurate positioning over short distances.
by inetknght 6y ago
> Scroolbars are useful for making large coarse leaps within a page in an instant, while scroll wheels are good for accurate positioning over short distances.
That's funny. I use them in the exact opposite way.
When I want exact positioning then I will use the scrollbar. When I want to scroll past pages and pages, I will just fling the scrollwheel.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- crysin 6y agoI think it's dependent on your mouse too. Personally I only use mice that have a click wheel, I absolutely hate free-spinning scroll wheels.
- wolrah 6y agoIMO the best mice ever are the Logitech MX Revolution and MX Master series that have an electronic clutch on the wheel. It's clicky by default but if you whip it the clutch unlocks and you can traverse an entire EULA in 0.6 seconds. Some of their newer gaming mice have a half-ass version of this as well with a manual mechanical toggle.
- p1mrx 6y agoThe MX Master 3 takes this further by using an electropermanent magnet, which is technology I didn't know existed: https://blog.bolt.io/logitech-mx-master-3-vs-2s/ https://blog.bolt.io/logitech-mx-master-3-vs-2s/
- bonestamp2 6y agoI have this mouse and didn't realize that's how it worked. I bet that technology could by applied to laptop keyboards to give them extra travel when the lid is open and tuck them down when the lid is closed.
- inetknght 6y agoI have one and I like it. It's not the best for gaming if you like lots of buttons but otherwise it's great.
- BoorishBears 6y agoThat explains the explosion of scroll wheel complaints with the 3 over the 1 and 2.
- smichel17 6y agoI see your 0.6seconds and raise 0.2 seconds for my <End> key ;)
- dredmorbius 6y agoIs the EULA scroll the new Kessel Run?
- germ 6y agoI use a Elecom Huge with drag-scrolling enabled (check xinput if you're curious!). For any kind of scrolling I just hold a sidebutton down and roll the ball, it's very handy and feels better then using a wheel, even if imprecise. For exact scrolling I'll use the scroll wheel or dive for the scrollbar. What I really want is a toggle bound to a button for enabling/disabling drag scrolling. Most of my flow is keyboard based so being able to toggle that on/off for a dedicated stroller would be great.
- inetknght 6y agoI usually agree. However I got a Logitech MX Master 3. It has a magnetic scrollwheel instead of a mechanical one. That also enables it to have a little button to switch between clicky scrollwheel and free-spinning scrollwheel. Super handy! Its battery lasts about a few weeks with above-average use (12+ hours per day, 7 days per week)
- derefr 6y agoSounds like you aren't scrolling in large-enough documents. Scrollbars are pretty useless for exact positioning in a 5000-page PDF; and scrollwheels won't get you very far, either, unless you're willing to scroll for literal minutes.
- inetknght 6y agoIn those documents I use control-f and search for what I want instead.
- gsich 6y agoIf you know what you want - yes.
- tomc1985 6y agoRead the Table of Contents and Jump to Page
- derefr 6y agoOften what I’m looking for in a document is a particular image or diagram I remember seeing, embedded somewhere in e.g. a long journal paper or textbook. I know enough to know what section of the paper or book it’s in, but I haven’t a clue what exactly it was labelled, let alone what the specific context was. But I can picture the diagram, so I’ll know it when I see it again, whizzing by. I just don’t need to whiz by the entire document, because I can be sure I saw it “in the middle” or “near the end.”
- saagarjha 6y agoHave you tried momentum scrolling?
- derefr 6y agoMomentum scrolling has a capped velocity†. Your velocity with momentum scrolling approximates a sigmoid. And the cap is far too low to actually get somewhere, if where you want to be is “somewhere in the last few chapters of a book” and you’re currently at the beginning. Scroll bars, on the other hand are perfect for that kind of jump — where you don’t know what you’re looking for, but you know mostly where it is, and you’ll recognize it when you see it. † There was a time, right when momentum scrolling was first introduced as a third-party mouse-driver feature ca. Windows 98, where it wasn’t capped. But that was a horrible UX: if something was really far down the document, then by the time you saw the thing you wanted to stop at, you would often be going far too fast and overshoot it by a lot, requiring almost as much scrolling back in the other direction. This first iteration of the feature basically expected people to understand how to “land” on a target using inertial, frictionless thrust. I imagine there were some future Kerbal Space Program players who enjoyed that, but most people didn’t.