4 ms·

They're a problem on non-mobile, as well. If the bar is over content, but the scrollbar isn't adjusted for it, pressing space or pagedown doesn't move down one

They're a problem on non-mobile, as well. If the bar is over content, but the scrollbar isn't adjusted for it, pressing space or pagedown doesn't move down one page worth of visible content. I don't get why breaking pagedown is acceptable. It's my preferred way to read long text.

paol 12y ago
Yes, this is quite a pet peeve of mine. Every other site nowadays seems to do this, even ones that I thought should know better (arstechnica is one that comes to mind)
rbonvall 12y ago
It is also my pet peeve. It is a big disadvantage, and I haven't ever needed the top bar (or wished it was there when there isn't one) so for me top bars are a feature with negative score. I guess we spacebarers are a minority and most people use the mouse wheel or the down arrow.
- pimlottc 12y ago
  > I guess we spacebarers are a minority and most people use the mouse wheel or the down arrow. I wondered recently if this doesn't bother other people; but all three of the other developers I sit with said they scroll via mouse/touchpad. One of them said he wasn't even aware of doing it consciously.
pimlottc 12y ago
Thank you! It is a huge peeve of mine as well. There needs to be a good post somewhere to publicize this issue. Something you can point to when you find a broken site that lays out the solution so it can be fixed. But I'm not sure exactly what the mechanism is that causes this; I thought it was simple a case of forgetting to add top padding to the page body, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. Last time I saw a site that did this, it already had the padding but still misbehaved in Chrome. Yet the paging worked correctly in Firefox! Further testing showed Safari worked, so (in this case, at least) it seemed to be webkit-related. But that's just one scenario. I suspect there's a number of ways people get this wrong, and it's unfortunately not just a single simple fix for all cases.
- pimlottc 12y ago
  Here's two broken-in-webkit-working-in-Firefox examples: http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/stream-robyn-and-royksopps-new-album-do-it-again/ http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/stream-robyn-and-royks... http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/05/7-eleven-just-killed-whatever-remained-of-hipsterism/371489/ http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/05/7-eleven-just-killed-...
- CmdrKrool 12y ago
  Adding top padding would push the beginning of the content down nice and clear of the fixed header, but that's not enough to avoid the page down problem because for paging purposes it's normally the height of the box from border to border that is used - which seems right and consistent with (vertical) scrollbars normally being drawn from border to border. And top padding's only at the top of the first page of content anyway, not every page. Anyway Firefox did make some effort to work around this common web design error (that being what I'd call it) which is probably why it behaves differently to Chrome: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=780345 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=780345 but I still find it hit and miss between from one page to the next. As you mention there are many scenarios - what if the fixed header only goes across say half the width of the page? What if it's less than 100% opacity? What if it varies in height? The browser makers have to resort to "heuristics" and now we're off into the land of deep unpredictability. While writing this I've also just noticed that - fixed header or no - pressing space / page down doesn't go exactly the same distance (in Firefox) as paging down by clicking on the scroll bar. Which is also a bit disconcerting.

paol 12y ago

Yes, this is quite a pet peeve of mine. Every other site nowadays seems to do this, even ones that I thought should know better (arstechnica is one that comes to mind)

rbonvall 12y ago

It is also my pet peeve. It is a big disadvantage, and I haven't ever needed the top bar (or wished it was there when there isn't one) so for me top bars are a feature with negative score. I guess we spacebarers are a minority and most people use the mouse wheel or the down arrow.

pimlottc 12y ago
> I guess we spacebarers are a minority and most people use the mouse wheel or the down arrow. I wondered recently if this doesn't bother other people; but all three of the other developers I sit with said they scroll via mouse/touchpad. One of them said he wasn't even aware of doing it consciously.

pimlottc 12y ago

Thank you! It is a huge peeve of mine as well. There needs to be a good post somewhere to publicize this issue. Something you can point to when you find a broken site that lays out the solution so it can be fixed. But I'm not sure exactly what the mechanism is that causes this; I thought it was simple a case of forgetting to add top padding to the page body, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. Last time I saw a site that did this, it already had the padding but still misbehaved in Chrome. Yet the paging worked correctly in Firefox! Further testing showed Safari worked, so (in this case, at least) it seemed to be webkit-related. But that's just one scenario. I suspect there's a number of ways people get this wrong, and it's unfortunately not just a single simple fix for all cases.

pimlottc 12y ago
Here's two broken-in-webkit-working-in-Firefox examples: http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/stream-robyn-and-royksopps-new-album-do-it-again/ http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/05/stream-robyn-and-royks... http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/05/7-eleven-just-killed-whatever-remained-of-hipsterism/371489/ http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/05/7-eleven-just-killed-...
CmdrKrool 12y ago
Adding top padding would push the beginning of the content down nice and clear of the fixed header, but that's not enough to avoid the page down problem because for paging purposes it's normally the height of the box from border to border that is used - which seems right and consistent with (vertical) scrollbars normally being drawn from border to border. And top padding's only at the top of the first page of content anyway, not every page. Anyway Firefox did make some effort to work around this common web design error (that being what I'd call it) which is probably why it behaves differently to Chrome: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=780345 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=780345 but I still find it hit and miss between from one page to the next. As you mention there are many scenarios - what if the fixed header only goes across say half the width of the page? What if it's less than 100% opacity? What if it varies in height? The browser makers have to resort to "heuristics" and now we're off into the land of deep unpredictability. While writing this I've also just noticed that - fixed header or no - pressing space / page down doesn't go exactly the same distance (in Firefox) as paging down by clicking on the scroll bar. Which is also a bit disconcerting.