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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar System
I'm not totally sure if this is Tiger-only or not (it's all I can test it on), so this may work in 10.3, too. If you click and hold in the scrollbar's "open space" (above or below the slider), and then move the mouse, you will be able to scroll a page at a time. It works nicely in Safari. I also tried it in the Finder and it seems to work there, but does not offer an animated feedback as does Safari.

[robg adds: I don't know if this is new behavior or not, but it's something I've never thought to try (then again, I have a scroll-wheel mouse that I usually scroll with). It seems to work nicely in Cocoa apps like iChat, Safari, and Mail. It works somewhat in certain Carbon apps (the Finder), and not at all in others (Word). For now, I have not coded this one as 10.4 only; if someone can test in 10.3 and post their results, I'll modify the hint if necessary.]
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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar | 14 comments | Create New Account
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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: parke101 on Jun 02, '05 11:14:09AM

For all those without Tiger, it does work in Panther.... At least with safari.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: pwrbkdude on Jun 02, '05 11:16:36AM

I believe this has been around for a LONG time. Even back to OS 9 and before. Any time you click above or below your current place in the scroll bar, it will jump forward or back a page. comes in REAL handy in FileMaker which doesn't support scroll wheel mice (and WHY DOESN'T it????)



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: MJCube on Jun 03, '05 12:00:15AM

Regular jumping by screenful (equivalent to the Page Up and Down keys) has been a feature of scroll bars since even before Macintosh: the Xerox Star and probably even earlier.

But this hint is about a more specific behavior. Used to be, when the scroll thumb (gumdrop) reached the arrow cursor, scrolling would stop until you released the mouse and clicked elsewhere. But now you can continue to drag away from the gumdrop and get more of the same jump-scrolling.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: davidduff on Jun 02, '05 11:25:12AM

i can confirm this has been around a long, long time. since system 8. maybe even system 7.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: StarvArt on Jun 02, '05 11:46:32AM

10.3.9 confirmation here, also limited to Cocoa apps. The slider is doing just what it is set to do in the System Preferences->Appearance panel; in this case, it appears that the author has "Click in the scroll bar to:" set to "Jump to the next page".

If you select "Scroll to here", the slider jumps right to where you've clicked in the scroll bar region (just like it says) and follows under the cursor as if you had clicked and dragged it. This also works correctly in Carbon apps.

It is interesting to note that in Carbon apps, if you have "Jump to the next page" selected, clicking in the empty region above or below the slider will only give you mobility in the direction initially chosen. If I click above (or below) the slider, it jumps a-page-at-a-time to where the cursor is, and will continue in that direction; moving the cursor to the opposite side of the slider does not move the slider in that direction.

For those of you with faster machines than mine (probably everyone, I'm still on a B&W G3 350), selecting the "Use smooth scrolling" probably doesn't produce the interesting lurch-as-it-jumps effect that I get.

BTW, the Shift key does not produce the 'slow-motion' effect that it does with the Dock and Exposé.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: Mike A on Jun 02, '05 12:29:34PM

This does not work in Panther. What the author is describing is the process of dragging the mouse in the unoccupied area of the scroll bar. Under Panther, you could click in the scroll area and it would jump to the next page/jump to where you clicked. However, dragging caused the page to jump to wherever you were dragging.

Under Tiger it will still jump to the next page. However, if you then drag in this area, the page will change view only one page at a time.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: englabenny on Jun 02, '05 02:22:21PM

I actually does work in Panther.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: earthsaver on Jun 02, '05 03:42:02PM

This has always worked as far as I know. For a while, at least, we have had a choice in Appearance preferences whether to "jump to next page" or "jump to here" when clicking or option+clicking on the scroll bar areas. This is no cryptic behavior.

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- Ben Rosenthal
Q16 1.25 - Tiger



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: bgagnon on Jun 02, '05 04:38:55PM

The catch is that your cursor must stay within the scrollbar area. If you start moving up and your cursor falls off the curvy white bar, no more scrolling for you. This behavior is different from normal scrolling (using the blue pill), where you can strafe left and right as long as your initial click was on target. Try it, it's really easy to fall off the narrow bar once you start moving up and down. I think it has to do with the OS treating the click-and-drag as individual clicks when you click in the empty portion of the bar.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: u2mr2os2 on Jun 03, '05 01:15:17AM

I've just noticed that holding option while dragging the scrollbar tab does a slower smooth scroll. Also, holding option while clicking above or below does the opposite of your normal setting. For example, for me, it does the "scroll to here" function instead of my normal setting of scroll one page. This may be an old feature. OS X 10.3.9 here.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: qwerty denzel on Jun 03, '05 03:40:46AM

Option-scrolling scrolls at one pixel at a time.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: pepi on Jun 03, '05 04:34:47AM

Congratulations for your discovery of the "scroll by a page" feature. It has been around as long as System 6! Yes, that predates the times when the Mac OS was not even yet called Mac OS but simply System. The "Mac OS" moniker started with uhm, System 8. :-)

No insult intended, it's great to see that you found one more feature for your own productivity and share it with others here!
Greetings Pepi



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: borgendorf on Jun 03, '05 10:54:31AM

I just booted up my 512K Macintosh and opened MacWrite. I put enough text to make two pages worth, then dragged the thumb (which doesn't change size and has the page number labeled on it) to the top of the document. I then click/held 3/4 of the way down the scroll bar. MacWrite showed me a screen at a time until it got to the thumb. This is a different effect than what is being described in this thread. All MacWrite was doing was displaying each screen full until it got to where I clicked. If I clicked and dragged the thumb, the document did not follow me.

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Time flies like an arrow. Fruit Flies like a bananna.



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Scroll section-by-section via the scrollbar
Authored by: osxpounder on Jun 03, '05 12:40:50PM

Interesting that Panther's Finder doesn't scroll the same way Safari does. Finder only lets me use this tip in one direction, but Safari lets me drag both up AND down to scroll. In Safari and Mail, I can stray from the vertical scroll area, left or right, and it'll stop scrolling, but as soon as I stray back into the vertical scroll area, the scrolling resumes. Try it: click in the scroll area, beneath the "gumdrop", and then drag as you draw a big circle around the gumdrop. [I always thought of it as an elevator, not a gumdrop, til OSX]. I guess that drawing the circle'd be easier if you have a narrow window [or 2 monitors, like me].

Liked that option tip, too. Now I can leave my scroll settings to "page at a time" and still option click to the top of my very full Mail viewer window. Nice, thanks!

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osxpounder



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