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A brief history of Windows scroll bar shortcuts

179 points · 118 comments · tybulewicz

  1. charcircuit · · focus · HN ↗
    You can also left click on the scroll bar to scroll to a place.
    1. cosmotic · · focus · HN ↗
      What do you mean? In my experience and according to the article, it scrolls pages at a time when you left click on the gutter.
    2. SupLockDef · · focus · HN ↗
      I think the article is focusing on the shortcuts.
    3. layer8 · · focus · HN ↗
      If you mean dragging, then that’s more than just a single click. And if you mean clicking in the gutter, then it also doesn’t work with a single click; you have to make use of the auto-repeat functionality, which takes O(n) time, where n is the distance between positions in number of pages. Shift+Click does it instantly in O(1).
      1. charcircuit · · focus · HN ↗
        >it also doesn’t work with a single click

        If you hold it down long enough it does do it in a single click.

        1. layer8 · · focus · HN ↗
          Look again at what I wrote. Auto-repeat translates into successive click events.
        2. autoexec · · focus · HN ↗
          one page up/down at a time though. It gets there eventually, but it's ugly.
    4. monkpit · · focus · HN ↗
      Yeah, I’m missing something here… didn’t he say that it goes down by a page if you click there? I always thought it just took you to that spot.
      1. McGlockenshire · · focus · HN ↗
        On Windows it's effectively a page down. The behavior you are describing is present on other platforms.
        1. IAmBroom · · focus · HN ↗
          On many Windows scrollbars it's pinpoint click once to reach any spot.
          1. TonyStr · · focus · HN ↗
            Not the case in Notepad, Edge, RegEdit, Windows Settings, MS Teams, Firefox on Windows, Bruno, Windows Search. Where exactly did you experience this? All aforementioned were tested in Windows 11
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