Gemini Proxy
Mouse Scroll Wheel Reversed by Latest Update
So my Xubuntu box has just finished a biggish update, and I find myself scrolling the wheel the wrong way.
My muscle memory insists that rolling the wheel down pulls the scrollbar down, which scrolls the text up as I read. It seems counterintuitive to push the wheel up to get to the bottom of the page.
And yet, that is what my computer now expects.
But it is possible that I am just nuts.
[A few minutes later]
Luckily easily fixed with the control panel setting. I think they did reverse the direction without asking, because I am no longer going the wrong way with my finger now.
Aug 10 · 3 days ago · 👍 norayr
17 Comments ↓
yeah, some linux distros set it that way for some reason. funky, just like how in kde if you wiggle your mouse fast and long enough it'll grow, one of my friends say that idea was from macos apparently, lol
If you focus on the content scrolling, *that* is the more intuitive way. You are moving the content with your fingers. The other way you are used to is probably a remnant of the times when you turned the side-wheel of a dot-matrix printer.
Some places have the gall to call it "natural" scrolling.
No, you rotated the dot matrix or typewriter wheel away from you/up/clockwise to get lower in the page!
From before the mouse wheel, you had to grab the scroll bar and pull down to get lower in the page. When the wheel materialized, you could roll the sroll bar down with it when you wanted to go down
It's kind of crazy to roll it up when you want down
It makes sense (to me, anyway) for scroll to be down to read more, when it's a wheel, and more sense for "up" to be down when it's a touchpad, touchscreen, or the like (like you're "pushing" the page away). On my work MacBook Pro, I find myself switching the control panel setting back and forth, depending on whether or not I'm using a physical mouse (with a scroll wheel), or not (touchpad).
At the very least, you should be able to set the gesture meaning separately from the scrollwheel meaning.
to think of it, the touchpad too, I drag down with two fingies to see more.
@stack I mean if you think you are rotating or scrolling something to move the page, you are right. But that thought is what I called a remnant of olden times. I you come to terms that you are not controlling a wheel-like thing beside the page, and directly controlling the page, pushing up to see more content below feels more natural. (But it’s preference, habits and muscle memory after all.)
Instead of: “finger down → scroller down → page up” (without a scroller of physical tech times) “finger up → page up”
I'm with @shizukado, the most intuitive scroll direction depends on the input device. I'm guessing this observed change in Xubuntu reflects the general user base: physical mice and desktop computers are becoming rarer, while laptops with trackpads are a very typical setup nowadays. Hence, the new default setting.
(The scroll direction really should be configurable per device...)
You can have my physical mouse when you pry it from my cold dead fingers. A track pad is just the least worst portable input method. I actually have an external mouse I carry with me to meetings. My work laptop also has the nubbin and I was forced to use it for the first time since the 90s the other day when the track pad decided it suddenly didn't have a driver (gotta love Windows 11.) The experience was worse than I remembered.
The only place it feels natural to move up for down is a touch screen. Fine on a phone but terrible on a laptop.
@darkghost trackpads are only good at *one* single thing: replacing your mouse when youre too lazy to replace the batteries. but when you put the new batteries in your mouse, id forget abt the trackpad for another few months
really hoping they don't start messing with what direction the up and down keys scroll text, or the page up and page down keys for the matter.
I equate 'scrollbar down' = 'mousewheel down'. In KDE this is the default, and if one desires the opposite (*shudder*), a tick needs to be activated on a checkbox labled "Scrolling: [] Invert Scroll Direction".
One could also think of it as "wheel down" = "viewport down". It's exactly like in video games where you pull back/down on the joystick to look down (except in airplane/helicopter games since those simulate a control stick) (I played aircraft stimulators extensively before I played a first-person game, and it took me awhile to get used to the "reversed" controls, and then it just clicked in my mind all at once).
I can sort of see why someone would consider the other direction.
If I picture a rolled up scroll on two spools, like the Torah, I would have to wind it up/clockwise to read downwards.
That is, I find it natural to scroll the viewport down the document while the other way moves the document down so you see above.
On my computer, I have disabled the scroll wheel entirely, using it only as the middle button. If I want to scroll, the page up and page down keys can be used, and in the programs with Xaw scroll bars, the scroll bars can be used in a useful way.
The trend in GUIs of hiding scroll bars is user hostile. Yeah there's a useful element denoting both document length/width and allowing you to access those portions of the document, but you need to "discover" it by mashing buttons or wiggling the mouse or smearing your finger on the glass.
Yes, I noticed that scrollers and sizing controls are getting comically unclickable
you're on bbs.geminispace.org/s/Linux/46924