Re: scroll bar and drop down list usability

[cs comlounge net (Christian Scholz)]

Hi!

On Thu, May 04, 2000 at 08:49:32PM -0700, John Sullivan wrote:
> One argument against scroll bars on the left is that it makes selecting text
> near the left edge of the window more likely to result in accidentally
> scrolling. Selecting text near the left edge of the window is far more
> common than selecting text near the right edge of the window (because the
> left margin is usually flush where the right margin isn't, and because
> selecting from the beginning of a line/paragraph is a common case).
> 
> I used a text editor once that I liked very much except that it had the
> scroll bars on the left. I constantly miss-clicked by a pixel or two and
> wound up scrolling. It was bad.

I remember when using Max 3D that it was quite handy being able to 
simply click into a white area of a list and scroll while holding down
the mouse button (was the middle one I think).
That was quite nice. Of course it's nothing for some text editing window
but for all sorts of selection lists.
The advantage is that you don't have to move anywhere with the mouse
first. (Of course you will also have this advantage when using a wheel
mouse but then again I think the wheel shouldn't be the middle mouse button
but maybe located at the left side of the mouse and then being used with the
thumb).

-- christian