Scrollbars

Part of the browser, or part of page elements?

[MatthewHSE]

I'm in a discussion over at mozillazine right now about whether or not scrollbars are part of the browser, or part of a page element. My contention is that they are part of page elements, when their content exceeds what is visible within the size constraints applied to the element. But, I could think of no better place than here to get other points of view! So how about it? Are scrollbars part of the elements they scroll, or are they part of the browser interface?

By the way, this all stems from a discussion about whether or not coloring scrollbars is a legitimate function of CSS. Obviously it's not at the moment since the CSS code necessary is IE-specific and not in the W3C specs - but if scrollbars are part of page elements, they should eventually make it into the specs to be open for styling.

Opinions, anyone? And yes I realize I may be touching off a tinderbox here, but I've never seen this particular question addressed before! ;)

Matthew

[john_k]

For all other document applications, the scrollbar is not part of the document, but a function of the application. The application decides if it has enough space to display the document in the window. If not, then it shows the scrollbar.

The application in turn, gets its color (and possibly other attributes) settings from the operating system. This allows the user, who may have sight disabilities or extreme preferences, to set the colors.

I vote for having browsers stick to the OS colors.

[D_Blackwell]

If I can get at it and design with it, then it is a page element. If I can't get at it, then it is part of the browser. For now, the answer depends upon the browser. If we're voting, I think that they should be a design element.

[encyclo]

Scrollbars are like the beach between the land and the sea. In some respects, they are part of the browser interface, and in others, they are part of the page structure. For example, the scrollbars can appear on an iframe or scrolling div within the document, so they don't just exist at the page's edge.

I don't like using non-standard CSS or markup, but there is a big client demand for colored scrollbars. I use it on several sites, preferably sent only to IE via conditional comments. Mozilla allows for the styling of form elements and input buttons, even if they to are sometimes considered part of the browser interface. Mozilla supports the

blink

tag and a load of other invalid, outdated or proprietary tags. That doesn't mean that they recommend that you use them. The demand is there for colored scrollbars, and I think Mozilla should cater to it.

[photon]

Opera has an option as to whether or not to allow styling of scroll bars. I keep it turned off.

In my mind it's part of the browser.

[D_Blackwell]

like the beach between the land and the sea

Excellent! I like that.

[vkaryl]

Okay. So where does that put the fact that the windows desktop display properties/appearance tab allows one to change the size of the scrollbar - which is usable/visible not only in a browser but in various applications?

F'rinstance, I don't LIKE scrollbars and don't want to see them, so I always set them to 8 instead of 10.... This shows in not only IE, but in Firefox (haven't paid attention in Opera and don't have access to a mac); it also shows in TopStyle Pro, WordPerfect 9, Excel, Word, etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam.

[R1chard]

^ exactly!

You ***HAVE*** to respect the user's preferences because they may be due to any number of disabilities, etc.

And when I'm writing a Word document or creating artwork as a JPG, I'm not able (and should not be able) to adjust the scrollbar color for Word or Photoshop...

If somebody wants a different scrollbar, then they will install a browser skin/theme. End. Of. Story.

[robotsdobetter]

If somebody wants a different scrollbar, then they will install a browser skin/theme. End. Of. Story.

To many surfers are way to lazy to do that and on top of that some don't even know where to find them!

[victor]

A webpage should have no control over the size or positioning of the window displayed -- that's entirely my choice.

Scrollbars are one mechanism for displaying content that is larger than my choice of window (though they are not the only possible mechanism).

So it is my choice whether scrollbars are there or not. And it is certainly mjy choice what color, size, and orientation they take.

(Some people may be happy to delegate that choice to an incoming webpage. I have no problem with that, provided I don't have to)

One possible exception is for divs and other elements whose overflow content scrolls. Those scroll bars are part of the displayed page. And it may make sense for the page to suggest colors and orientations for them. Particularly if the background color is such that standard scrollbars may be invisible. But, again, allowing that to happen has to be my choice.

[MatthewHSE]

Well, now, it begins to look like we're getting into another "should I color the scrollbars?" debate again, when what I meant to ask was an entirely different question! ;)

My personal perspective is that the <body> scrollbar should be left alone, on most sites at least. Iframes and other scrolling elements might be a different matter on a heavily-themed site.

But, the question is, what are the scrollbars? Are they part of the browser, or part of the element they're scrolling?

And while we're at it, would anyone care to take a guess at why IE uses such goofy "CSS" to color scrollbars? A separate class for each "part" of the scrollbar, and only the color can be adjusted? What about some of the other CSS capabilities, such as background-image, width, border, etc.? I really don't get it. There would be some sites that could really look sharp, with no usability problems, if background images could be used on scrollbars!

[DonMoir]

You may have noticed that webpages do not conform to any particular UI. While I don't recommend changing the scrollbar colors in general, there are times when the system scrollbar colors simply don't look right with the UI you may be trying to present. For example, I did a particular webpage that attempts to match the colors of a television to some degree. Colors choosen by the system would not have worked well for this. The content area below the video screen displays a scrollable table with a gray scrollbar to match the page.

This is a fun page for multimedia enterainment. It requires Internet Explorer 5.5 or better and MediaPlayer 7.0 or better. A high speed connection also helps. Check it out!

[home.earthlink.net...]