Idea
#4849: Smooth scrolling in Gtk applications
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274
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Written by erlend the 16 Mar 08 at 18:31.
Category: Look and Feel.
Related to:
Nothing/Others.
Status: New
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Description
One of the first things new users comment on when trying linux is the lack of "smooth-scroll" in applications. Although it is a relatively minor point - smooth scrolling has come to be expected these days. Some of the advantages of it are,
* Looks more modern and professional,
* Allows the user to read while they scroll with the mouse wheel,
* In (for example) a Pidgin chat window the motion of a smooth scroll when you receive a message draws you eye: our brains are configured to respond to movement,
* Smooth movement is natural - jerky movement is not,
* Everyone else is doing it!
What would be required is for enough Ubuntu devs to discuss this on the Gtk mailing list, to show there is a demand for it. Once implemented this would include all Gtk applications, including Nautilus, Firefox and Pidgin.
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Comments
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AndrewC wrote on the 16 Mar 08 at 19:22
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Honestly, I hate smooth scrolling. It feels laggy and weird.
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erlend wrote on the 16 Mar 08 at 19:29
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It only feels laggy if it's poorly implemented. Firefox has smooth-scrolling, and it's fine.
Perhaps there would need to be a way to turn it off, say for slower machines.
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ubunteando wrote on the 16 Mar 08 at 20:11
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Hell yeah... I really hate the sucky scrolling system of ubuntu... In firefox is just the way its supposed to be!!
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oliver@schinagl.nl wrote on the 16 Mar 08 at 23:31
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Heh, years ago, when I was still using windos, I always turned off smooth scroll. The smooth scroll there was an annoying, slowdwoning hogging thing, with slow ups and speed ups. It was horrid. However normal scrolling is clean and works.
in GTK+ however, scrolling seems to be something that's not smooth at all. I scroll, and I don't get any screenupdates until it stops again (Unless the scrolling is really slow). If that's your sense of smooth scrolling, then I think you mean just scrolling has to be fixed.
If you really are thinking of the slow down, speed up thing when scrolling is initiated, Let's wait till they fix the normal scrolling first, and then have an option added for smooth scroll :)
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gaspard.leon wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 00:02
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GTK / GNOME window redraw is too slow for smooth scrolling.. once it's quicker, I would vote for this...
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erlend wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 01:14
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Do the two previous poster have really slow systems? Admittedly I have quite a fast system (Core 2 Duo) and scrolling is fine for me (I also use Compiz).
Even a few years ago, I used Gentoo and they have a patch to add smooth-scrolling to Gtk. I had a Pentium 4 then and I honestly noticed no slow down from the patch.
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pt123 wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 01:45
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Smooth scrolling is great if you could change the number of lines scrolled by the mouse wheel. But Gnome doesn't support this just the ridiculous 1 line.
The only escape is KDE, Windows or to use a Mozilla product as like Firefox and Thunderbird.
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Muunsyr wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 03:54
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I like this idea also. For those who feel smooth scroll is 'laggy', slow or im-precise, please consider the information below.
For reference I am currently on an XP machine with firefox 2.0.0.12. I have not tested this on my Ubuntu machine at home - I assume it will be the same.
Smooth scrolling is good in this version for the reasons below.
Turning smooth scrolling on does not slow down the rate of scroll. Nor does the page keep scrolling when you stop moving the scroll wheel. With one scroll wheel click the text will slide up the screen in a way that your eyes can follow it (for 4 lines of text). With smooth scrolling dis-abled the text 'jumps' 4 lines at a time - much harder to follow.
I don't think this nice sort of smooth scrolling should be confused with the horrible experiences one can have with other applications - before firefox, smooth scrolling in internet explorer made the webpage feel like it was attached to a rubberband. I hope that makes sense, but it was definately something to disable.
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Magnes wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 09:18
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smooth-scrolling looks very bad on some (most? only slower ones?) LCDs
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dm-ig wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 12:27
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Best way of implementing smooth scrolling is use of Xorg composite extension to draw prerendered window contents.
How do you think windows apps do that? They don't render every time!
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Auzy wrote on the 17 Mar 08 at 12:42
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I don't see any reason why it couldn't be added to the code anyway, and only enabled with a compiler flag
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jrusinek wrote on the 20 May 08 at 14:26
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> Firefox has smooth-scrolling, and it's fine.
Turn Compiz with nVidia/AIGLX on. Smooth means "jerky".
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erlend wrote on the 22 May 08 at 16:26
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> Turn Compiz with nVidia/AIGLX on. Smooth means "jerky".
If you're going to use unstable software (Compiz) you have to expect some problems with it.
PS: you can actually mitigate the jerkiness of Compiz in Ubuntu by installing CCSM, starting it, going into General settings then turning off "Detect Refresh Rate" and putting the refresh rate to 200 - though I'm not entirely sure why this actually works.
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natenewz wrote on the 18 Jul 08 at 14:47
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It seems like there are some mis communications here. On my Ubuntu system (not windows xp) in firefox 3, you cannot smooth scroll. By smooth scrolling I mean the increments that the window moves is very extremely small (almost infinitesimle--what a calculus idea :-)). My friend who has an apple used my computer the other day, and he is the kind of guy who just wants a computer to work, so he can surf the web, and check his email. I asked him what he thought of Ubuntu. He replied, "I hate it because it doesn't scroll right. I can't stand that it's not smooth."
On my laptop, when using the mousepad to scroll, it will often keep scrolling after you have removed your finger from the pad, in addition to being jerky. I'm running a very new computer, and there is no reason, with good programming we couldn't make the scrolling work on a slower computer. I also checked out scrolling in Evolution, and it moves close to one line at a time. By one line I mean while scrolling through the list of messages, if you drag the scroll bar on the side, the minimum resolution is about 1 message. Why is it so wide?
If gtk could store what isn't being shown all in a buffer, up to a certain limit I suppose, it seems like it could have much better scrolling, at the same speed as moving a window around.
This is a serious problem with Ubuntu, because it's such an untidy cornerstone.
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natenewz wrote on the 18 Jul 08 at 14:49
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There is a difference in Firefox between dragging the scroll bar and using my mouse pad. It's a lot worse when using my mouse pad scroller. I'm guessing my computer is an anomaly.
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