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I lament the death of always-visible, easily-grabbed scrollbars. Every scrollbar is transparent, disappearing, tiny, and exceedingly difficult to grab. Why? I g

I lament the death of always-visible, easily-grabbed scrollbars. Every scrollbar is transparent, disappearing, tiny, and exceedingly difficult to grab. Why? I guess UI designers decided that scrollbars are ugly. Same with obvious buttons; at some point, half of buttons were made into obscure symbols, and even when words are still used, any kind of bordering that points them out as buttons is gone. Just freestanding symbols and words. It's infuriating. Low-contrast colors EVERYWHERE also angers me. Low contrast is great for being easy on the eyes, but certain interactive elements need contrast to indicate their function. My best example is that Linux desktop themes across the entire DE space focus on low contrast at the expense of almost everything else, and it's hard to figure out stuff as simple as which window is on top and active, or which elements in a window are clickable.

timw4mail 2y ago
Where am I on this page, and how long is it? No idea until I find the invisible scollbar! That really is an irksome trend.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  I have to scroll with the mouse wheel just to make the scroll bar appear, and then be quick enough to get the pointer over it so I can drag it before it disappears again. It is super irritating.
teddyh 2y ago
> Every scrollbar is transparent, disappearing, tiny, and exceedingly difficult to grab. Why? I guess UI designers decided that scrollbars are ugly. It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Every mouse now has a scroll wheel (or corresponding mechanism) and on touch displays, scrolling needs no scrollbar either. Of course, it’s still terrible to remove the only indication that a box has more information available that can fit, and is therefore scrollable. Not to mention the useful property of seeing both your current approximate position and the total size at a glance.
- albert_e 2y ago
  in many situations we need to scroll both vertically and horizontally -- for example a Excel spreadsheet / google sheets, or maps even on touch screens -- depending on the UI -- if the entire display area is "hot" the scrollbars might be the only way to pan around without editing / triggering other actions
  - teddyh 2y ago
    > in many situations we need to scroll both vertically and horizontally Hold down shift to scroll horizontally.
    - albert_e 2y ago
      one can also use page-up / page-down / home / end / arrow / ctrl+arrow etc. ... if keyboard has to be used. scroll bars indicate visually how big the scroll area is and where you are ... and let you directly click or drag you position. there was a lot of useful functionality available at a single mouse click that has been sacrificed in pursuit of visual prettiness / minimalism.
- Tsiklon 2y ago
  Grabbing and manipulating the scroll bar can be significantly faster in large windows than scrolling incessantly. I know Logitech mice allow you to scroll freely, but a user shouldn’t have to purchase specific hardware to rectify for a failure in software
- hulitu 2y ago
  > It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Every mouse now has a scroll wheel (or corresponding mechanism The god damn scroll wheel does not work in half of the cases in Windows. When you have work to do is very annoying.

timw4mail 2y ago

Where am I on this page, and how long is it? No idea until I find the invisible scollbar! That really is an irksome trend.

rootusrootus 2y ago
I have to scroll with the mouse wheel just to make the scroll bar appear, and then be quick enough to get the pointer over it so I can drag it before it disappears again. It is super irritating.

teddyh 2y ago

> Every scrollbar is transparent, disappearing, tiny, and exceedingly difficult to grab. Why? I guess UI designers decided that scrollbars are ugly. It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Every mouse now has a scroll wheel (or corresponding mechanism) and on touch displays, scrolling needs no scrollbar either. Of course, it’s still terrible to remove the only indication that a box has more information available that can fit, and is therefore scrollable. Not to mention the useful property of seeing both your current approximate position and the total size at a glance.

albert_e 2y ago
in many situations we need to scroll both vertically and horizontally -- for example a Excel spreadsheet / google sheets, or maps even on touch screens -- depending on the UI -- if the entire display area is "hot" the scrollbars might be the only way to pan around without editing / triggering other actions
- teddyh 2y ago
  > in many situations we need to scroll both vertically and horizontally Hold down shift to scroll horizontally.
  - albert_e 2y ago
    one can also use page-up / page-down / home / end / arrow / ctrl+arrow etc. ... if keyboard has to be used. scroll bars indicate visually how big the scroll area is and where you are ... and let you directly click or drag you position. there was a lot of useful functionality available at a single mouse click that has been sacrificed in pursuit of visual prettiness / minimalism.
Tsiklon 2y ago
Grabbing and manipulating the scroll bar can be significantly faster in large windows than scrolling incessantly. I know Logitech mice allow you to scroll freely, but a user shouldn’t have to purchase specific hardware to rectify for a failure in software
hulitu 2y ago
> It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Every mouse now has a scroll wheel (or corresponding mechanism The god damn scroll wheel does not work in half of the cases in Windows. When you have work to do is very annoying.