3 ms·

Sounds 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 y

by derefr 6y ago

Sounds 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 ago
In those documents I use control-f and search for what I want instead.
- gsich 6y ago
  If you know what you want - yes.
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    Read the Table of Contents and Jump to Page
    - derefr 6y ago
      Often 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 ago
Have you tried momentum scrolling?
- derefr 6y ago
  Momentum 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.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Hmm, I'm not sure. On macOS at least if it is capped it's capped at something very high because I don't think I've ever had an issue getting through something long.

by derefr 6y ago

inetknght 6y ago

In those documents I use control-f and search for what I want instead.

gsich 6y ago
If you know what you want - yes.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Read the Table of Contents and Jump to Page
  - derefr 6y ago
    Often 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 ago

Have you tried momentum scrolling?

derefr 6y ago
Momentum 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.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Hmm, I'm not sure. On macOS at least if it is capped it's capped at something very high because I don't think I've ever had an issue getting through something long.