[SOLVED] Firefox v46: scrollbar (and bookmarks toolbar) problems

[Sydney]

Clean install of LMDE2 MATE, 64-bit.
When I installed it, it came with Firefox v. 45 and the scrollbar behaved normally.
I then updated to Firefox v. 46, and clicking onto the scrollbar now makes it jump to the place I clicked. As if I was doing shift-clicks. Also, the arrows at the top and bottom of the scrollbar are gone and the bar itself if fairly narrow (though this might be a design choice).
The Firefox support says that v.46 requires GTK3 and since I am using MATE, I am out of luck.
(Also, this only happens in Firefox, scrollbars everywhere else are fine).
Has anybody else had this problem and have any solutions been found ?
Thanks a million !

[LMDE Enthusiast]

I have a slightly different problem, though apparently related to the update to FF46: The button size/padding on the bookmarks toolbar has increased, leaving 'whitespace' within the folder buttons and thereby moving many of the bookmark folders to the 'show more bookmarks' expander, thus decreasing efficiency. I don't know where in the about:config to find anything to change.
However, I also now realize that the up/down arrows on the scrollbar are also gone (not that I care).
I also note the change from the 'page up/page down' nature of clicking anywhere in the scrollbar outside of the current view portion, to the 'jump to a spot on the page relative to where in the scrollbar I clicked.' THAT I don't like.
EDIT: MATE also

[filozofio]

My problem with the update is the bookmarks bar: it has less space than before, Firefox 46 leaves a lot of space between each bookmark on the bar.

Yes, I am using MATE, too.

[Sydney]

Yes, I have that problem with the bookmarks too. Glad that I am not alone. Now all we need is a fix.

[Andy-A]

Also, the active tab is no longer highlighted. Previously it was a lighter grey than the other tabs.
I find it difficult to spot the active tab now.

[filozofio]

I found a temporary solution with this add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/a ... s-toolbar/

[xenopeek]

I don't think it matters whether MATE already supports GTK3 for its own applications or not; GTK3 is a toolkit library for applications just like GTK2 and Qt. Applications can use whichever toolkit they want.

Right-click on the scroll bar will scroll a step in that direction (hold to scroll in steps). Left click and hold down on the slider for a second or two and it will blink and you can move the slider to scroll in very small steps.

[MikeF90000]

I have a slightly different problem, though apparently related to the update to FF46: The button size/padding on the bookmarks toolbar has increased, leaving 'whitespace' within the folder buttons and thereby moving many of the bookmark folders to the 'show more bookmarks' expander, thus decreasing efficiency. .... snip ....

I tried the above Roomy Bookmarks Toolbar addon and it is OK, but my solution may work better for you:
- remove the mint-stylish-addon package, if installed
- install the Stylish add-on in FF
- install the Stylish style at this URL: https://userstyles.org/styles/5546/book ... ly-iconize
This removes separators and folder icons (if present) from the bookmark toolbar. I have 15 folders on this bar with a little room to spare.

I also heartily recommend the Classic Theme Restorer addon as it allows far more customizability than the ever-dumber FF defaults.

[ccprog]

For the scrollbar, this works for me in Cinnamon:

Add in file ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini (create if it does not exist):

Code: Select all

[Settings]
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider=false

As for MATE, I am not sure. Does it still use the gtk-2 settings infrastructure? In this case, the file would most probably be ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

[LMDE Enthusiast]

The above-noted changes (~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini, ~/.config/gtk-2.0/settings.ini, ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc, or ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.ini) do not appear to change the scroll bar under MATE, at least not for me.

edit: Actually, the page down nature of clicking within the scrollbar is 'back to normal.' I was looking for the up/down arrows, which are still not there - again, not that I care about that. I am happy to report that it doesn't jump like it did after the update.

[Sydney]

@ccprog: Thank you, you are my hero ! Your solution works perfectly under MATE also.
The folder "~/.config/gtk-3.0" did not exist. But after creating it and adding that file "settings.ini" with your entry, Firefox's scrollbar behaviour is back to normal.

@LMDE Enthusiast: I tried creating the files you mentioned (~/.config/gtk-2.0/settings.ini, ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc, ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.ini) and adding ccprog's entry, but this did not change Firefoxe's scrollbar behaviour at all. It was the gtk-3.0 entry that helped in my case. But thanks very much for your suggestions anyway. And by the way: the arrows never came back for me either. But just like yourself, I can live without them.

@filozofio: thanks so much for pointing out the add-on. It works great for me (and does not clash with the Classic Theme Restorer add-on that MikeF90000 recommended and that I had already been using).

@Andy-A: I noticed something similar when I transferred my Firefox profile onto another computer running LMDE2 MATE.: the colors were reversed: prior, the highlighted tab was darker than the others, afterwards it was lighter, but the difference was minimal. Go figure ! I don't have access to that computer now, but I just looked at the settings on my own machine and I think this might work for you: install the add-on that was previously mentioned: "Classic Theme Restorer". Go to "preferences" and the 3rd option on the left side "tab colors and text" lets you chose the background colors of your tabs and you should be able to chose different colours for highlighted / non-highlighted tabs. Hope this helps !

Thanks again, everyone. You made my day / week

[seahorse41]

I switched to Mint from Debian because of the scrollbar inconsistency with GTK-3. Now this Firefox upgrade went down the same bad route.
Yes, adding that line to the settings.ini file does resolve the problem. Thank you.
Who's responsible for making the UI unusable? Is there anybody to complain to? Will Mint continue to keep the scrollbar issue from maddening users here, in other apps?

All applications scrollbars should act the same way.

[Sydney]

You can thank Mozilla for that. It would be fantastic if they would stop breaking things. Every other update renders something else unusable which requires yet another add-on as a fix. This time they messed up even worse imho.

P.S. You can read through the release notes for FF v.46 if interested:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/4 ... easenotes/

[JosephM]

Keep in mind this is the first version of Firefox released using gtk3. A lot of the issues people are reporting are theming issues and it will take a bit of time for themes to adjust. If you are on Mint17 or Betsy and use Mint-X you can add

Code: Select all

.button.text-button.image-button {
    padding: 4px 7px;
}

to /usr/share/themes/Mint-X/gtk-3.0/gtk-widgets.css to fix the spacing in the Firefox bookmarks toolbar. It's already fixed in Mint-X for Mint18.

[LMDE Enthusiast]

@JosephM: You are a star, my friend! Thx for the bookmark fix!

[mattst]

For the scrollbar, this works for me in Cinnamon:

Add in file ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini (create if it does not exist):

Code: Select all

[Settings]
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider=false

As for MATE, I am not sure. Does it still use the gtk-2 settings infrastructure? In this case, the file would most probably be ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

Thanks. Also fixes the scrollbar issue for me in Cinnamon.

[JosephM]

Just a quick note. A fix was just pushed to Mint-X for the extra wide spacing in the bookmarks bar. LMDE users should have an update to mint-themes-gtk3 showing up in the update manager soon.

[lugligino]

For the scrollbar, this works for me in Cinnamon:

Add in file ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini (create if it does not exist):

Code: Select all

[Settings]
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider=false

As for MATE, I am not sure. Does it still use the gtk-2 settings infrastructure? In this case, the file would most probably be ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

Thanks a lot! It was uncomfortable.
Honour to ejs that found it on 2012 https://community.plus.net/t5/Tech-Help ... 381#M45707