DE or Distro with REAL scrollbars

[appalbarry]

I've been using Mint Cinnamon for several years, and mostly have no reason to change, except that I have grown to really despise the stupid gnome disappearing scrollbars. They disrupt my workflow and just plain drive me mad.

QUESTION: Just what problem were these things supposed to solve?

Can someone point me to a fairly minimal desktop or distro with REAL scrollbars throughout, and which is as fast and easy as Mint to install?

Please don't bother pointing me to instructions how to hack the desktop or Gnome to make real scrollbars happen. I really am long past mucking about in such fashions. I just want something that installs and works properly.

(My measure for an easy install is Mint: plug ion USB, accept all of the defaults, disable CapsLock, and I'm up and running.)

Thank you!

[Retic1959]

I've been using Mint Cinnamon for several years, and mostly have no reason to change, except that I have grown to really despise the stupid gnome disappearing scrollbars. They disrupt my workflow and just plain drive me mad.

QUESTION: Just what problem were these things supposed to solve?

Can someone point me to a fairly minimal desktop or distro with REAL scrollbars throughout, and which is as fast and easy as Mint to install?

Please don't bother pointing me to instructions how to hack the desktop or Gnome to make real scrollbars happen. I really am long past mucking about in such fashions. I just want something that installs and works properly.

(My measure for an easy install is Mint: plug ion USB, accept all of the defaults, disable CapsLock, and I'm up and running.)

Thank you!

Have you tried KDE ? Best way I know of to get away from Gnome .

[sevendogs]

Change the gtk theme. On my phone right now so cant tell you where but think it's under the "themes" icon in settings. Adwaita is the gnome theme with disappearing scroll bars. Not sure the theme dialog says "gtk theme" might be something like "application " theme.

Fyi, this is not an attribute of a DE or distro but of the toolkit used to create the window objects (gtk vice qt). These application elements are themeable so that's why all DE's provide a means to change them.

[Retic1959]

Change the gtk theme. On my phone right now so cant tell you where but think it's under the "themes" icon in settings. Adwaita is the gnome theme with disappearing scroll bars. Not sure the theme dialog says "gtk theme" might be something like "application " theme.

Fyi, this is not an attribute of a DE or distro but of the toolkit used to create the window objects (gtk vice qt). These application elements are themeable so that's why all DE's provide a means to change them.

My statement stands , KDE is the best way I know of to get away from Gnome of which I am not a fan in any way ,shape or form .

[sevendogs]

The OP didn't ask an opinion question, they asked a technical question and I answered it.

[JosephM]

It's just a setting. Cinnamon-settings->Effects turn of "Overlay scrollbars" and log out and back in.

[Retic1959]

The OP didn't ask an opinion question, they asked a technical question and I answered it.

Never mind , after the OP's last post I'm done .

[appalbarry]

Just expand on last night's post, here's what I wrote over on the POP! OS forums a while back:

"I have for the most part found POP to be exactly what I want for a work environment, and have been happy to try and help with bug reports and repeated installs to track down issues. I have promoted the OS in various forums and discussions.

At the end of the day though the stupid disappearing scroll bars are just too much for me. I would like someone to explain to me just what the point of them is, because I surely can't see any use for them.

They irritate me no end,. They don't communicate any useful information. They are completely useless for navigating documents. Is there anything that they do well aside from disappear?

I'm not alone, not by a long shot. Just Google "real scroll bars for gnome" and you'll find thousands of other people that also can't stand the stupid things. The complaints go back several years. Again, I would like someone to explain to me just what the point of them is, because I surely can't see any use for them.

Telling people to install a different desktop environment, or hack css or ini files is not a reasonable response to something that represents a serious usability problem to a lot of people. The thing that I liked about POP is that I could install it and out of the box it was almost exactly what I wanted. I needed to do two things: disable CapsLock and restore the minimize and maximize buttons. With Gnome-Tweak this took maybe fifteen seconds.

What I would like, really, really like is one setting somewhere that says "Old Style Scroll Bars" and restores them to the old usable state. Lord knows there are a few hundred settings for things significantly less important or useful. This doesn't seem like an unreasonable request.

And, yet again, I would like someone to explain to me just what the point of disappearing scrollbars is, because I surely can't see any use for them.

I've been mucking about with computers back to the days of Commodore 64 and dial up BBSs. I've done my time fixing stuff, figuring out obscure configurations, and tweaking stuff until it's "just right." I no longer have any interest in spending hours or days on stuff like this. I want to install an OS and just get to work without hassles and without significant changes to the expected environment.

With the sole exception of these stupid scroll bars POP is exactly that: plug in a USB stick, hit "install" and be working productively fifteen minutes later.

So please, please, regardless of what the gnome people want, can we get this one change in POP??

[Moem]

Telling people to install a different desktop environment, or hack css or ini files is not a reasonable response to something that represents a serious usability problem to a lot of people.

How about telling people how and where to change a setting? Is that a reasonable response?

[appalbarry]

To date I've had something like a dozen "just do this" suggestions, none of which are "change one setting.". I'll look at it when I'm back at my desktop machine later.

Before I do though, will this restore fully functioning scrollbars across all applications on the system?

Thanks

Barry

[Moem]

To date I've had something like a dozen "just do this" suggestions, none of which are "change one setting.".

And from a Mint developer, no less.

Before I do though, will this restore fully functioning scrollbars across all applications on the system?

I've just changed the setting on mine, it's working on Nemo, if you can name some standard applications you'd like me to try I'll be happy to.

[appalbarry]

Cinnamon-settings->Effects turn of "Overlay scrollbars" and log out and back in.

Ok, that does seem to make scroll bars stay put.

I'm still faced with the problem that my expected behavior is:

Click above or below the slider, and move one page up or down.

Instead (at least with a long document in Xreader) I get:

Click above or below the slider, and jump up or down a random number of pages.

Which is honestly entirely useless.

[Moem]

Cinnamon-settings->Effects turn of "Overlay scrollbars" and log out and back in.

Ok, that does seem to make scroll bars stay put.

Okay, so: original problem solved, after several years. You must be pretty happy now...

I'm still faced with the problem that my expected behavior is:

Click above or below the slider, and move one page up or down.

Instead (at least with a long document in Xreader) I get:

Click above or below the slider, and jump up or down a random number of pages.

Which is honestly entirely useless.

Oh, you thought of a new thing to be unhappy about... okay then.

I get the impression that the length of the jump is not random, but related to how far below or above the slider I clicked.
Anyway, I never use scroll bars by clicking near them... I had no idea you could even do that. I grab them and move them. If I want to jump one page up or down, I use the page up and page down keys.

How did you come up with this expected behaviour? Have scroll bars ever worked for you like that in any OS?

[appalbarry]

It's expected behavior because that's how scroll bars worked for a couple of decades until some clever people decided that they would "improve" them. In my use case I spend a lot of time navigating within and editing documents, and moving my hand back and forth from the mouse to the keyboard breaks concentration and workflow.

In other words, my right hand is used for both navigation within the document and selection of text, both of which used to be done easily with just the mouse. Previously the mouse could be used to move up or down a page at a time, or to drag the slider for larger jumps. That behavior is lost.

Remember that the whole concept of editing on a computer is a) Select item or text block with mouse; b) drag and drop that to another location on the screen. The operating assumption is that your right hand is largely on the mouse for most activities. (And if you're using something like PhotoShop you do almost everything with a mouse.) My right hand almost never leaves the mouse, and my left hand handles things like CTRL-C and CTRL-V. If my right hand is also on the keyboard then using the mouse to select text makes less sense and I might as well go back to WordStar or Wordperfect commands to select text.

What I'm still waiting for is an explanation of what these new scrollbars are supposed to improve on. All that I've found is the assumption several years ago that because scrollbars don't work on phones and tablets they should be disappeared on the desktop as well. I think at this point we've learned that it's pretty close to impossible to create a GUI that works well on both the desktop and an iPhone.

[greerd]

Try right-clicking the scrollbar.

[aes2011]

...
I'm still faced with the problem that my expected behavior is:

Click above or below the slider, and move one page up or down.
...

What you want is "legacy scrolling".

[aes2011]

I get the impression that the length of the jump is not random, but related to how far below or above the slider I clicked.
Anyway, I never use scroll bars by clicking near them... I had no idea you could even do that. I grab them and move them. If I want to jump one page up or down, I use the page up and page down keys.

How did you come up with this expected behaviour? Have scroll bars ever worked for you like that in any OS?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GT ... g_behavior

[Moem]

Try right-clicking the scrollbar.

That doesn't do anything for me... but rightclicking above or below them makes the screen move down or up by one page. As I understand, that's exactly what the OP has been looking for for years. So... that's the second problem fixed. We're on a roll!

[greerd]

We're on a roll!

But only one page at a time

[appalbarry]

OK smartasses who apparently don't see the problem in making significant changes to fundamental UI elements, two questions.

1) Again... what problem is solved by disappearing scroll bars ? What do they offer that's so valuable? Still haven't found anyone to answer that question.

2) Are you part of the group that still gripes about the MS Office "ribbon" a decade after it arrived? Or who criticized Windows 10 for abandoning an entire UI in favour of tiles stuck to the desktop?