This is by design, can you not use 2 finger scrolling on the trackpad or mousewheel?

+lpalmaro

A design that requires 2-finger trackpad or mousewheel seems questionable from an accessibility perspective and breaks long-established patterns.

FWIW, that's exactly how overlay scrollbars on OSX work

Just because Apple makes a mistake doesn't mean we should too.

Sorry, I just realized that came off harsher than I intended.

My point is that we really need to think about this. Not everyone can use two-finger scroll or scrollwheel and not everyone will want to. I'm not convinced the advantages are worth the disadvantages in that direction.

No offence taken :)

It's come up before and this was an intentional decision, though this isn't the first complaint I've heard about it so perhaps we should rethink the approach. Perhaps a compromise that everyone might be happy with is to allow users to switch the old-style non-overlay scrollbars.

I don't have any experience or insight on accessibility issues here so pardon my ignorance. Are scrollbars actually used for accessibility reasons? My instinct would be that trying to hit and drag a small piece of UI would make them rather inaccessible. Or is it that there's other tooling that relies on existing scrollbars and patterns?

re: accessibility, it gets complex. I'm hoping lpalmaro@ will have more insight on that.

My bigger concern is people with old/cheap mice that lack a wheel, or less-technical people who might have never learned to use a mouse wheel or touch scrolling. Changes like this put a big burden on those users.

Apple has historically never had a problem forcing users to buy new hardware or relearn as part of the evolution of their platform. I don't want to be like them. Also, they don't push automatic updates every 6-weeks. We do. Having a user decide to upgrade to a new machine or OS version is a fine time to cause changes like that. Having the user wake up one day to such a thing, not so much.

I really don't like keeping 2 scroll models around or putting the burden on the user to figure out how to switch back to the old model. :-/

The suggestion to have it fade in as the mouse reaches the edge of the window is interesting, but that seems likely to interfere with content.

Grrr. No easy answers.

Right, the primary reason we can't just fade the scrollbars in is because then it makes some content unclickable. Anyway, I'm just a lowly eng, hopefully product people like tbuckley@/sgurun@ can chime in.

Most of the time I use a trackball (weird maybe, but that's how I 'roll').  The auto-hiding scrollbar means I have to keep moving one hand back to the keyboard.

That said, it's still a pain when I use the trackpad.  I've just tried every possible 'gesture' on the trackpad on my Acer Chromebook .. none of them help with this problem.

Tbh, I'd be happy if you just gave me an option in Advanced Settings.

  Keep Visible  or  Auto hide

As it stands, my whole Chromebook experience is now best classed as 'frustrating' which is a shame, because I'll be forced back to my Fedora laptop as I just can't take the pain of scrolling with Arrow key / Scroll bar combination for web design etc.

As an aside, if you want an easy answer » Go back to the old system ... it wasn't broken (as it is for many of us now).

"Apple has historically never had a problem forcing users to buy new hardware or relearn as part of the evolution of their platform. I don't want to be like them. Also, they don't push automatic updates every 6-weeks. We do. Having a user decide to upgrade to a new machine or OS version is a fine time to cause changes like that. Having the user wake up one day to such a thing, not so much."


I guess this is my problem.  This Chromebook was new 5 mths ago - I don't expect it to be barely usable in such a short space of time, especially due to a software change which affects the entire OS.  

My Chromebook is entirely Google (except for my Crouton Xubuntu) ... it has the 'standard' trackpad ... and there are no 'gestures' that work to scroll down the page. Producing software/an OS that doesn't work on all (Google) branded devices is surely the domain of Microsoft?!

Link to a screencast showing my frustration (no audio)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B22XdNOtwvM9LWRoOV9ZbTVHazg

To preface, we haven't shipped anything yet - this isn't even in beta yet. Canary/Dev channel are where we learn something's wrong. We're generally pretty good at not bricking hardware :)

That said, I was under the impression that all chromebooks should have a multitouch trackpad. What Chromebook do you have? Can you really not scroll by dragging two fingers vertically across it? The underlying assumption has been that all the devices we ship on should have a scroll gesture. If that's false, we definitely wouldn't turn this on for devices that don't.

I have an Acer Chromebook for Work, model CP5-471.

To clarify, I can scroll up & down with the trackpad but this is a step backward. Using the trackpad does not give me anywhere near the same control I get from my trackball (connected by USB).

As I use my Chromebook for many things, I like to sit with my hands away from the keypad (for comfort). I don't like to sit craned over the smallish 14" unit and am not always on a surface suitable for a traditional mouse.

I would ask that you either a) don't change it (what is the reason anyway?) or b) give me an option in settings.

The reason is that most users don't use scrollbars anymore and they take up space in the window that could be better used by content.

As bokan@ said, dev channel is where we experiment with things.  We're glad to have you using it and providing feedback, but if that volatility creates problems for you, beta or stable might be a better choice.

Got it, thanks.

The reason for the change is to bring scrollbars in line with material design guidelines. Aside from unifying the look and feel, overlay scrollbars are nice because they maximize the amount of screen real estate usable by content. Personally (obviously subjective), I think they look much more modern and clean than old style scrollbars too. There's also some nice technical benefits but those are only of interest to us browser hackers, not users, so they're an afterthought really.

It does sound like we may want to provide users with an option as there are some legitimate cases where old style makes sense. We could also turn off overlay scrollbars when an external mouse is plugged in. I'll bring it up in feature review. Thanks for your input!

Turning it off when there's an external mouse might be the best option. That avoids having to add an option and avoids users having to know to go and change the option. The down side is having to maintain to scroll implementations in the long term. :-/

I think we'll have to maintain the old implementation for a long time anyway because it's shared with Windows and we're unlikely to be able to make this change there. So I don't think this will add any additional burden.

Here's the dilemma ... I'm a web designer so I need good graphic tools but have long since fallen out of love with Mac & Windows.

Chrome OS offers me everything (inc brilliant Drive integration), with 1 notable exception ... a good Vector graphics package.

So, I install Crouton and run Xubuntu, giving me Inkscape (and GIMP).  It's easily enough for what I need, but to have Crouton I have to have Dev Channel.

My preference would be 'Stable' Channel with a decent Vector Graphics package - but as yet, there is no such thing for Chrome OS. None of the current solutions allow me to add my own fonts to the system, and Roll App + Inkscape is too slow.

The harsh reality I'm facing is that this Chromebook isn't a work tool I can rely on, despite a stunning battery life and an overall very good experience.

I shall probably return to my Korora (Fedora) laptop and give this over to my partner - which is a great shame, because it's a system that is so very nearly workable - and most of the time I can survive happily, but when changes come in (like the scroll bar), it just tips the balance to 'frustrating' to the point where I don't feel it's helping me achieve my tasks.

As for Scrollbars taking 'space' ... come on?  2mm?!  Let's not forget they also act as a visual cue as to your vertical location on the page!

edit: "having to maintain TWO scroll implementations"

This is really a product call. I'll bug tbuckley about it when we're all back in the office after the new year.

AFAIK, you should be able to install Crouton on stable, no?

As for size of scrollbars, some Chromebooks have very small screens, so yes, every little bit counts. Nested scrollers on a page make this even worse (e.g. multiply by 4 panes on jsbin.com).

hello@ crouton requires developer MODE, but not developer CHANNEL. You can have a Chromebook on stable channel running in dev mode with crouton.

I'm fairly certain you can't install Crouton on anything but the Dev Channel.

You say "every little counts" .. but don't say for what? 

I had an early Acer Notebook 10".  It had a fixed scrollbar. The screen size is already the limiting factor - 2mm didn't make any significant difference to me as a user (I'd already made a huge compromise!).

Anyway - I've passed on my comments.  Not everyone is worried about a couple of mm of screen real estate. Not everyone wants to sit at a laptop with their hands craned over the keyboard (I find it uncomfortable and unnatural).

I shall wish you all goodnight from the UK and have a read of further comments tomorrow. Thanks for listening and replying!

I shall look into Dev Mode vs Dev Channel for Crouton tomorrow - thanks for that.  I followed advice I found online somewhere, so I guess it wasn't quite right. :)

It's admittedly confusing. :-) Thanks for your feedback.

Just chatted with tbuckley@: we'll figure out a better way to deal with this before it goes to stable.

tbuckley@ based on our convo this morning it sounds like there's a plan to resolve this issue so that auto-hide scrollbars will be usable for users with mice/trackballs without scroll.  Should we close?

Yep, we will be making sure it is still accessible by mouse. Our current plan is to show the scrollbar when the user hovers on the side of the page. Closing this for now.