4 ms·

The scrollbar is not reliable. On Apple platforms, they hide the scrollbar unless you’re scrolling. I think CSS lets us specify that it should be visible on our

The scrollbar is not reliable. On Apple platforms, they hide the scrollbar unless you’re scrolling. I think CSS lets us specify that it should be visible on our own pages, but I don’t know how that interacts through browsers to the native behavior.

self_awareness 2y ago
Well, but it is visible when you scroll. Progress meter is also at 0% when you're not scrolling, so unless you scroll, you don't know how much text there is to read. (btw, just checked for Firefox and Safari, and the scrollbar is visible at all times, unless the website explicitly hides it)
- jorams 2y ago
  > (btw, just checked for Firefox and Safari, and the scrollbar is visible at all times, unless the website explicitly hides it) There is a setting for this called "Always show scrollbars" and I know it defaults to off for me. The underlying about:config rule is specific to GTK though, so this may be platform-specific.
  - self_awareness 2y ago
    I was checking this on macOS. I have system scrollbar setting set to "automatic". Never changed scrollbar settings in Safari/Firefox, so it works like this for me by default, not sure why. But also I don't really get how people are fine with hiding the scrollbar, but prefering to see the progress meter always visible for text, when the scrollbar conveys mostly the same information (except some edge cases when the footer is long I guess). Not that it's important at all, I'm just at loss and it's not the first time I'm getting a signal that sometimes I simply don't understand people. But of course that's fine.
    - chuckadams 2y ago
      The scrollbar is per-page, the meter is per-article. Lots of blogs where I see a progress meter also have multiple articles on one page, sometimes even infinite scroll. I personally find the meters kind of superfluous, but they don't bother me since they usually stay out of the way.
      - self_awareness 2y ago
        Can you paste me an example website which uses a progress meter to track reading progress across multiple articles on one page?
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
> On Apple platforms, they hide the scrollbar unless you’re scrolling. On macOS, at least, this is a setting so you can make them visible or invisible according to your taste. Probably not available on phones, though.
pacifika 2y ago
The scroll bar is at least as reliable as the progress bar meter surely.

self_awareness 2y ago

Well, but it is visible when you scroll. Progress meter is also at 0% when you're not scrolling, so unless you scroll, you don't know how much text there is to read. (btw, just checked for Firefox and Safari, and the scrollbar is visible at all times, unless the website explicitly hides it)

jorams 2y ago
> (btw, just checked for Firefox and Safari, and the scrollbar is visible at all times, unless the website explicitly hides it) There is a setting for this called "Always show scrollbars" and I know it defaults to off for me. The underlying about:config rule is specific to GTK though, so this may be platform-specific.
- self_awareness 2y ago
  I was checking this on macOS. I have system scrollbar setting set to "automatic". Never changed scrollbar settings in Safari/Firefox, so it works like this for me by default, not sure why. But also I don't really get how people are fine with hiding the scrollbar, but prefering to see the progress meter always visible for text, when the scrollbar conveys mostly the same information (except some edge cases when the footer is long I guess). Not that it's important at all, I'm just at loss and it's not the first time I'm getting a signal that sometimes I simply don't understand people. But of course that's fine.
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    The scrollbar is per-page, the meter is per-article. Lots of blogs where I see a progress meter also have multiple articles on one page, sometimes even infinite scroll. I personally find the meters kind of superfluous, but they don't bother me since they usually stay out of the way.
    - self_awareness 2y ago
      Can you paste me an example website which uses a progress meter to track reading progress across multiple articles on one page?

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

> On Apple platforms, they hide the scrollbar unless you’re scrolling. On macOS, at least, this is a setting so you can make them visible or invisible according to your taste. Probably not available on phones, though.

pacifika 2y ago

The scroll bar is at least as reliable as the progress bar meter surely.