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I agree, and I personally really hate it when websites provide their own scrolling mechanism, as it usually doesn't support two-finger (mouse wheel) scroll, doe

I agree, and I personally really hate it when websites provide their own scrolling mechanism, as it usually doesn't support two-finger (mouse wheel) scroll, doesn't have acceleration, doesn't have my OS scroll speed, etc. IMO overriding scroll bars on your site / app is almost always a bad idea, as it leads to poor UX / usability. Edit: I'd also extend my opinion to cover things like a strip of items which must be scrolled through using other UI elements (e.g. Arrows or bubbles). While cute (maybe), this only allows uses to scroll at the one speed you give them. Just put it in a horizontal scroll or better yet, do something completely different.

wtallis 12y ago
I think this may be a proposal to allow for scrollers that behave natively but are visually unrecognizable as such. While in theory that may allow for the worst offenders to rein things in a bit, I suspect it will more likely be taken as an invitation for people to make their sites less usable and accessible.
scrollaway 12y ago
I absolutely agree that reimplementing scrolling logic is absolutely awful. It's an accessibility nightmare. But scrollbar styling is very different to scrolling logic. We're not talking about stealing people's mousewheels here, we're talking about changing scrollbar themes. This is important for apps which want native scrolling logic inside their app but want their app to look native. The only alternative, in fact, is to reimplement scrolling logic inside the app. Performance suffers, accessibility suffers, everyone loses.
- userbinator 12y ago
  but want their app to look native. Shouldn't you not be attempting to modify the appearance of the scrollbars and letting them be the style the OS chooses, if you want them to look "native"? These developers seem to be wanting scrollbar styling so they can make scrollbars look different from their native appearance. There are also quite a few truly native apps which have reinvented scrollbars instead of using the OS', and they are awkward to use because they don't behave exactly like native ones do.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    Sometimes I feel as if I'm talking to programmers who have zero design experience. Behaviour is not the same as styling. A good app's scrollbars will behave natively but will look in line with the rest of the app. Compare GMail's scrollbars, especially the ones for the XMPP Chat, between Firefox and Chrome.
    - userbinator 12y ago
      You said "want their app to look native", and I'm saying that, if you do not apply any styling, the most native-looking and native-behaving things in the app probably are the scrollbars. ...or are we not agreeing on what "native" means? I've long thought it referred to the default appearance/behaviour of the OS/browser.
thefreeman 12y ago
you realize all the things you mentioned are only reimplemented in code due to the lack of native scrollbar styling, right?

wtallis 12y ago

I think this may be a proposal to allow for scrollers that behave natively but are visually unrecognizable as such. While in theory that may allow for the worst offenders to rein things in a bit, I suspect it will more likely be taken as an invitation for people to make their sites less usable and accessible.

scrollaway 12y ago

I absolutely agree that reimplementing scrolling logic is absolutely awful. It's an accessibility nightmare. But scrollbar styling is very different to scrolling logic. We're not talking about stealing people's mousewheels here, we're talking about changing scrollbar themes. This is important for apps which want native scrolling logic inside their app but want their app to look native. The only alternative, in fact, is to reimplement scrolling logic inside the app. Performance suffers, accessibility suffers, everyone loses.

userbinator 12y ago
but want their app to look native. Shouldn't you not be attempting to modify the appearance of the scrollbars and letting them be the style the OS chooses, if you want them to look "native"? These developers seem to be wanting scrollbar styling so they can make scrollbars look different from their native appearance. There are also quite a few truly native apps which have reinvented scrollbars instead of using the OS', and they are awkward to use because they don't behave exactly like native ones do.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  Sometimes I feel as if I'm talking to programmers who have zero design experience. Behaviour is not the same as styling. A good app's scrollbars will behave natively but will look in line with the rest of the app. Compare GMail's scrollbars, especially the ones for the XMPP Chat, between Firefox and Chrome.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    You said "want their app to look native", and I'm saying that, if you do not apply any styling, the most native-looking and native-behaving things in the app probably are the scrollbars. ...or are we not agreeing on what "native" means? I've long thought it referred to the default appearance/behaviour of the OS/browser.

thefreeman 12y ago

you realize all the things you mentioned are only reimplemented in code due to the lack of native scrollbar styling, right?