emacs-pretest-bug
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: scrolling very buggy (slider, arrows) under OS X


From: David Reitter
Subject: Re: scrolling very buggy (slider, arrows) under OS X
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 22:03:39 +0000

On 11 Mar 2004, at 12:17, Miles Bader wrote:

No, this is wrong.

The slider's size represents the size of the displayed text -- in characters -- in relation to the size of the entire buffer. As different portions of a the buffer can have different displayed sizes (e.g., a screenful of a part of
the buffer with very long lines may have many more characters than a
screenful containing only newlines), this means that the slider can change
size as you move it.


Doesn't that violate the basic principle of UI design that you shouldn't do things that
reduce 'perceived stability' of the UI?
You're changing a UI element (the slider) and it's not intuitive to the user why the size
changes.

If you really follow through with your argument, you would also want to scroll character by character when the user clicks on a vertical arrow. Applications don't do that -- why?

Oh wait -- I've just used that term 'vertical'. Hmm. Sounds like vertical scrollbars scroll vertically, horizontal ones scroll hor... That means, the user has lines in mind when scrolling vertically. So that's what should determine the size of the slider.

I understand that you want to be consistent with the traditional Emacs behavior rather than with current graphical user interfaces. Fair enough. But how about a customization option? Is there one already?

By the way, if you try the OS X version you will agree with me that at least the arrow-buttons display very buggy behavior.

Best
Dave


--
David Reitter
Research Fellow. Adaptive Speech Interfaces.
MEDIA LAB EUROPE www.mle.media.mit.edu

Being me. Seeing me. http://davids-world.com





reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]