[Etoile-dev] Scroll-bars suck

[David Chisnall]

Has anyone noticed how much scroll-bars suck?  They are not bad as a  
display component, and they are okay if you want to scroll  
approximately, by a line, or by a page (as long as you are not near  
the end of a large document), but for anything else they are really  
painful.

Can we come up with something better?  The thing where scroll bars  
really fall down is the ability to scroll an arbitrary (smallish)  
amount accurately.  I would propose (as a first approximation)  
placing a dial at one end of the scroll bar (perhaps replacing the  
arrows, perhaps in addition), which could be dragged in a circular  
motion for fined grained positioning of the scroller.  This would  
eliminate the digital nature of the buttons.

For Fitts' Law constraints, we should make the dial as large as  
possible, although we are probably limited by the width of the scroll- 
bar.  I would probably like to make the dial expand while the mouse  
is held down on it so people can see it a bit more clearly.