Brendan Tompkins [MVP]

Blog First. Ask Questions Later.

New IE features I'd like to see... Grabby Scrolling

Yesterday, I posted about a new feature of IE I'd like to see. Here's another feature I was thinking about. This one is stolen from other applications like Adobe Acrobat. I'm not sure the proper term for it, but I think that “Grabby Scrolling” is a good one too.

On a typical IE page, clicking the left mouse button on anything but a link, text, image or UI control has no effect. To me, this is a wasted UI opportunity. Acrobat uses this space to allow the user to click and drag the page to scroll horizontally or vertically. Why not have that functionality in IE? Often moving the mouse to the scrollbar requires more effort than necessary. Okay, call me lazy. And I always forget about that wheelie thing on my mouse, so they might as well get rid of it. Having this funtionality would allow you to scroll the current window without moving the mouse to the scrollbar.

-Brendan

Published May 11 2004, 06:36 AM by Brendan Tompkins

Comments

TomRowton said:

Actually, clicking anywhere in the rendered area begins selecting rendered content.

And yes, that's lazy, but then again, I'm a keyboard person. I don't read fast enough to need this functionality, but my mouse-wheel is sorely missed on my work laptop. (Along with the added benefit of switching tabs in Firefox.)

If you add this function, then in order to select rendered content, the user has to be much more precise than currently. How about making it like the Grabby Scroll feature of Photoshop - Spacebar(hold) + Left-click = Grabby scrolling. In fact, there's a lot of the keyboard+mouse interface from PS that would be "good" in many apps.

I ramble, but basically, this functionality would annoy me more than trying to find and install the free Realplayer, which is a lot.

Use the wheel, Brendan. Let go. (teehee)

# May 11, 2004 3:46 AM

Brendan Tompkins said:

Tom. Right you are about the selection thing. Didn't think about that. I guess Acrobat has two tools to allow for selection of text if you need it.. I guess some switch or keyboard shortcut could work. Pressing spacebar while mousing could work. Or pressing spacebar twice could toggle the feature on or off.

Now that we're talking about selecting things, how about fixing up the selection logic in IE or a tool for smart selection? It's fairly hard to select text in a web page, especially on sites with tables, divs etc. How often have you tried to select just a bit of text, and instead you select tables somewhere else on the screen?

# May 11, 2004 3:57 AM

TomRowton said:

I don't have that happen too often, and the sites where it does happen, there's usually a Print-version of the page available.

I tend to open a buttload of tabs with articles I want to read, copy them all into notepad, then print from there - I don't get ads, it takes less paper, and I can read everything I want on a coffee/smoke break throughout the day.

I think the thing that really messed up browser selection was DIVs, SPANs, etc. Sure, some folks write bad code too, but I don't have that much of a problem. Maybe it's the difference in which sites we visit.

I like the idea of toggleable features - kinda like hitting your spacebar(or is it shift key) five times in a row will turn on sticky-keys(whatever that is) - so we know MS knows how to do this sort of thing.

Actually, now that I think about it, the only time I use IE is for testing webforms at work or for paying bills online(and of course, the rare site where the author went a bit too far down IE-specific code-writing). 99% of my surfing is done in Firefox. So maybe this feature wouldn't annoy me at all if added to IE. ;-)

# May 11, 2004 4:12 AM

Scott Galloway said:

Get a better mouse...Intellipoint mice with the scroll wheel thingy allow this. Just click on the wheel, just like the grabby thing except better...

# May 11, 2004 7:22 AM

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About Brendan Tompkins

Brendan has been programming with .NET since the first public beta and is owner and operator of Port Technology Services, a consultancy company providing .NET application development services to the Maritime industry. In July, 2007, he was awarded the Microsoft MVP award for ASP.NET. He's also a proud co-founder of failed .COM startup Intrinsigo, and has had a hand in the failure of numerous other businesses. He currently runs CodeBetter.Com and Devlicio.us, and lives in Norfolk, Virgina with his wife Tiara and son Ian.