Patch For Scrollbars Without Arrow Buttons
I realised some time ago that I never actually use the arrow buttons on scrollbars (especially in KDE, since KDE has intelligent mouse-wheel handling). So, since to me they are a waste of space, I made a patch to remove the arrow buttons, here’s a screenshot (300 KiB). The patch applies against recent SVN, and prolly most of KDE 3.x, but this isn’t tested.If you try it against a stable KDE release and it applies and works, then please say so in the comments, thanks!
One issue I’ve found is that now it’s hard to tell the scrollbar is actually a scrollbar. The arrow buttons are the key part when visually recognising that the widget is in fact a scrollbar and not just some button or a part of the frame-decoration. Also the patch doesn’t work well with the GTK-Qt widget engine, but I know how to fix this, I just can’t be bothered yet.
There is no option in preferences, you just have to have no arrow buttons. Maybe one day I’ll make it a proper patch with config dialog checkbox, etc. But not yet! I hope the patch is liked by some people.
Apply like so:
/your_SVN_root/trunk/KDE/kdelibs/$ patch < no_scrollbar_arrow_buttons.SVN_2005_07_24.diff
Please note, in the screenshot, the score of 15 for Mike Oldfield’s amaroK is partly because, as an amaroK developer, the scores in my collection are mostly bogus (due to testing), and also because the score deciding algo isn’t too fair for longer tracks (this one is 60 minutes long). In fact love that track!
Maybe it would help if there were small black arrows at each end of the scrollbar that can move, and greyed out ones at the ends that are at their max/min positions.
That would probably have to be done in each style though.
ciasaboark April 5th, 2006 at 20:10Why notmake the arrows part of the scrollbar?
Ryan James April 5th, 2006 at 21:43Hello!
I also think that those arrow buttons are one of the most unsed things occupying space in my desktop, though they might prove useful for beguinners.
I think that a better thought certainly more complicated approach to it would be to blend them with the rest of the scrollar in some way. I’m thinking about keeping the arrows being shown but not the button border around them, only show it on mouse over and let the main moving thing of the toolbar be moved to that space. So that you can still tell that it’s actually a scrollbar because of the arrows, you can use it, but it doesn’t waste space at all
Eduardo Robles Elvira April 6th, 2006 at 6:02Could you make it have arrows on the ends of the scrollbar itself?
hachaboob April 6th, 2006 at 8:27The only problem I could see with this patch is for those people who don’t have mouse wheels - like my laptop. Sure, I can click the bar, but the arrows are useful, and as you say, they provide the visual cue that the bar is a scroll bar.
Duncan Hill April 6th, 2006 at 8:32I like this idea very much. As you said, I also never use these arrow buttons, which I just realised now.
To make the scrollbar more recognisable, maybe you could put two little arrows on the edges of the scrollbar, indicating possible movement (no buttons, just visual indicators). If the scrollbar is at the top (or bottom), the indicating arrow could be greyed out.
Just a small suggestion, thank you very much for this excellent idea, which I hope will find its way into one of the next releases.
-Tom
Tom April 6th, 2006 at 9:13I think scrollbars should be keeped:
1. As some already pointed the give you a visual clue of what’s an scrollbar.
just kidding
2. People are used to see those arrows…
3. The most important reason perhaps is that people without mouse wheel tend to push those buttons because pressing the bar itself means that you’ll need to move your mouse again when the bar reaches your cursor. If you press the buttons instead the bar will move all the way up or down without moving your mouse.
4. If you hate wasting screen space… why did you use a HUGE font for your window title bar ?!?!
SnOp
Marc April 6th, 2006 at 11:44I like the idea of putting the buttons in the scrollbar itself. I may try to make a patch for it.
And it’s worth noting this won’t become a KDE default or anything, I’m just a KDE application developer, I have no kudos with kdebase or kdelibs.
Max Howell April 6th, 2006 at 12:01Intelligent? Ha! I’ve been fighting with KDE (or X, I’m not sure which) to get my scroll wheel to work somewhere other than a scrollbar. It has maybe got to be the most annoying thing in the world. Any help appreciated:
Benjamin Kudria April 7th, 2006 at 0:51I like the patch myself when using the desktop machine b/c I rely on the wheel button quite a bit. However, on a laptop with a , it becomes a burden since there’s no wheel mouse available. An updated patch where this behavior could be toggled in kcontrol would be optimal and I’m sure could be pushed into 3.5.3.
Here’s to hoping, but thanks for the patch!
cheers
Ryan Nickell April 9th, 2006 at 2:52Your post appeared today on KDE Planet RSS –with a tenth of other posts. Any way, I found it very interesting when I realized that I never use the scrollbar arrow buttons either. I won’t apply your patch but I will add a new arrowless scrollbar type to my style. I definitively think this kind of “bar tuning”
is a job for the styles.
Thanks for the patch; it tells me exactly what I need to take care of.
Remi Villatel July 3rd, 2006 at 20:36and I stumbled more than once on the limitations of Qt or KDE. Serenity always does better whenever possible. Last thing for today: A new scrollbar style. It doesn’t mimic the look of any existing GUI, it removes the arrow buttons. A few day ago, an old post from Max Howell
cat /dev/maxilys July 5th, 2006 at 6:15