[HOMBRESINIESTRO]

This is a much more intuitive way. I would love if you could simply change it in a pref pane. This would also avoid the conflict between the resize corner on the lower right and the vertical scrollbar, as horizontal scrollbars are not so often used.

Last not least, and that is the most important aspect, windows are still navigatable if they are dragged outside the viewable area of the screen on the right.

Here's a screenshot of OmniWeb2 on NeXTSTEP. I think they did it right back then:



What do you think?

[paully dub]

I don't agree that it's more intuitive. I would maybe agree that for left handed users it might be, but for me, and my right hand, the right side of the window is the more intuitive.

In fact I put the dock on the left, as it's out of my way.

But sure, having the possiblity to switch from a right handed interface to a left handed one in System Preferences would be nice.

[TETENAL]

For right handed persons the scrollbar on the right is more intuitive. If it's on the left you'd have to always cross the content to reach the scrollbar. Also if you have the scrollbars on the right and bottom you automatically get the space for the resize box. If you put it to the left you have an unused space at the bottom-left and an ugly box at the bottom-right. Anyway, every program on the Mac is built with the assumption that the scrollbar position is to the right, so it can not be changed by Apple alone with a simple checkbox.

Whether windows have a draggable window frame is a totally unrelated matter.

[jasong]

I wholeheartedly agree, the scrollbars should be on the left (obviously this should be selectable like the scroll arrows). It's only more intuitive on the right because that's where it has always been. Think about it, every other control is on the left, Menus go left to right, text is justified left to right (on most languages, the current system works great for Hebrew), check boxes and radio buttons are on the left side of the window, in both column view and list view the folder contents are on the left.

So in the current system you mouse across the screen to the scroll bar, slide down the window, mouse back to the other side of the window and do what you want to do. Obviously if you have a scroll mouse this is much less annoying, but Apple doesn't include those with their systems.

Bring on the option! Scroll bars on the left!

-- Jason

[xi_hyperon]

I myself prefer them on the right, but I think it should be made an option to have them on the left.

[mishakim]

I prefer it on the left, though it does take getting used to when you're used to it on the right. If it were an option, I'd use it, but as a default, I just see it adding to confusion for novice users.

I'm curious though: those who say they prefer it on the right, how many have actually tried it on the left? I'm not aware of any system but NextStep that did that, and it didn't exactly have many users.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by jasong:
It's only more intuitive on the right because that's where it has always been.

Actually, this isn't true, at least for cultures whose dominant tongue reads test left to right. There have been actual studies about this. Read on.

Think about it, every other control is on the left, Menus go left to right, text is justified left to right (on most languages, the current system works great for Hebrew), check boxes and radio buttons are on the left side of the window, in both column view and list view the folder contents are on the left.

Buttons in dialog boxes are on the right, the Trash is on the right, the clock is on the right... why? It has to do with a thing called prioritization. David Every explains this concept as applied to the desktop at http://www.mackido.com/Interface/Screen.html, but it applies just as well to individual windows; the concept is the same.

Think about this. We'll assume a left-to-right language for the time being. Typically, one uses a scrollbar relatively rarely; the vast majority of a user's time is spent reading text, and very little is spent on scrolling. Clearly, therefore, a scrollbar is of lower priority than the text window, and so it should be placed "after" the text, which in an LTR language means on the right.

We can even break this down further and go into the scrollbars themselves. When it comes to how scrollbars are used, most users scroll a page at a time by clicking in the trough, or freely by dragging the scroll thumb. The two scroll buttons see very little use by comparison: once again, lower priority, so they should be placed after (in this case, below) the other controls. There is actually a side benefit to this: when users do need to fine-tune where they've scrolled, it is faster to place the buttons close together.

What side a scroll bar is on should not be on option, because some people will choose to do it. This is Very, Very Bad for interface consistency across computers. A user who moves from machine to machine will have a great deal of trouble adjusting to a scrollbar side to which he or she isn't accustomed. You can try this yourself; some X11 programs, such as WTerm, allow their scrollbars to be placed on the left. Give it a shot, and see how easily the switch comes to you. The answer is dead-simple: it won't come easily at all. If it becomes an option, then it should be strictly tied to the language being used: LTR scripts place the scrollbar on the right, and RTL scripts place it on the left. This preserves consistency inside languages -which people switch far less frequently than they do computers- while preserving priority across languages.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by mishakim:
I'm curious though: those who say they prefer it on the right, how many have actually tried it on the left? I'm not aware of any system but NextStep that did that, and it didn't exactly have many users.

Although only NeXTStep ever placed their scrollbars on the right, quite a few X11-based apps can be configured or hacked to put scrollbars on the left, and I once tried to switch over using my Linux apps. The results were not pretty, to say the least. The worst part is unlearning habits, particularly when those habits need to be kept around when you need to work with machines that put scrollbars on the right (as we all do, and will continue to do if it's made an option).

[Laurence]

The simplest way to solve this is to just get a mouse with a scroll wheel. I haven't used scroll bars in years and don't miss them. I realize that Apple probably will never ship with a two button mouse, but they should at least add a scroll-wheel, whether it is electronic or mechanical.

[Synotic]

It's interesting how everyone is claiming that one way or another is "more intuitive" without giving much reason at all. I'm guessing that people will call whatever they're used to as being better and making more sense simply because they've always used it.

To Tetenal on "every application being built with the assumption that the scroll bar . . ." It would seem that regardless which side the vertical scrollbar is on, it would take up the same amount of space. If an application is using a standard scroll view, I bet it could at least be an option. Perhaps someone could develop an APE that did it (probably easier said than done). I'd be interested in trying it. Also, I don't see how you're necessarily "moving across the content" more if vertical scrollbars were to be on the left side. Is there a reason your mouse is generally on the right side?

Jason, you make a good point on most things being left aligned. Can you think of anything that is right aligned? The one thing I can think of are the "default" or "main" buttons in a sheet/dialog. The search field is also usually pinned to the right. I also noticed something interesting with Mail that seems to reinforce the "everything's on the left" idea:



(excuse the diagram)

Especially in this example, it would seem that you have to move your mouse more across the content in this example than if the vertical scroll bar was on the left side. Another benefit would be that your scroll wouldn't move, and you'd always be able to vertically scroll if your content expanded past the right edge of the screen (like was earlier mentioned).

It certainly seems to make more sense. I'd like to try it.

P.S. I was originally going to remark that I didn't find the original poster's argument very compelling (perhaps I still don't), but I eventually ended up thinking it might be an interesting idea.

[P]

First up: When it comes to the interface, options are not necessarily to the good. It's bad for consistency. Apple has followed this admirably, like with the issue about the double arrows in 8.5: Either the old way or the new way, not 50 different variants like the betas had.

Second, there are LOTS of good reasons to have it on the right side. This sort of thing is really not done by flipping a coin. I'm not going to recite all of the research ever done into human interfaces, but I'll mention a few things:

* While top left is higher priority than top right, bottom right is higher priority than bottom left (which also makes it offical that the Windows Start button is in the worst possible position). Putting the scroll controls there is a worse choice. Even if one is in the top corner, this is bad, because the top arrow is used much less than the bottom arrow (closing the window when you've read it all, eg).

* Look at the pointer arrow. It's pointing from the right, beacuse you tend to move it with the right hand. You would be mentally shadowing your content with your right am when moving a slider to the left of the window.

For the rest, use Millenium's links for a start. Read up on the subject a bit.

[version]

It should be a global option, like the scrollbar arrows. It's not going to throw consistency out the window, no more than having the arrows in different places.

Mackido's site is full of holes and opinionated nonsense, sorry, but I don't buy half of what is said there, never have. A lot of it deosn't apply in real-wolrd stituations (not in my experience, anyway)

The right way, is the user's way, and something like this should be up to the user. Who cares if throws some out of whack? They aren't ging to use it, only those who want it, will. To say that it should only be an option for those who read right to left languages; is to admit that the scrolbars in the left should be an option.

[paully dub]

When I say that right hand scroll bar seem more intuitive, it's because of a couple of factors.

First, being right handed, holding the mouse at the right hand side of the screen corrolates more or less visually with the usual position of my pointer, and thus the pointer movement follows the movement of my hand. The less I have to move my hand to my left, the better.

Secondly, for those who often will select portions of text, or click on a link, or what have you, the content flows from left to right, thus the end of the line being close to the scroll bar makes perfect sense, and saves me from having to move the pointer all the way back to the left side of the window. Indeed as the need to scroll usually happens at the bottom right hand side of the page, I really don't see the need for up/down arrows anywhere else than the bottom right. Obviously this is not true for all languages, and that's one very compelling reason to give other scrollbar options.

A thrid note is that a left hand scroll bar wouldn't be the best most elegant solution for the vast amount of websites which have their menus on the left hand margin. Can a scrollbar and a clickable menu really co-exist just a few pixels apart?

I'm sure I could get used to a switch, but it just seems so darned counterintuitive to me.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by version:
It's not going to throw consistency out the window, no more than having the arrows in different places.

It does throw consistency out the window. The only reason this isn't catastrophic is that the scroll buttons are so rarely used.

Mackido's site is full of holes and opinionated nonsense, sorry, but I don't buy half of what is said there, never have. A lot of it deosn't apply in real-wolrd stituations (not in my experience, anyway)

In other words, because you don't agree with it, it must be wrong for everyone: a classic inductivist error. David Every has a lot of problems, but most of his UI stuff is backed up by solid research. I daresay your anecdotal evidence is not.

The right way, is the user's way...

Only when "the user's way" cannot do harm. This is harmful.

Who cares if throws some out of whack?

Apple does. The entire point of the Macintosh project was to create a computer that wouldn't throw anyone out of whack; once you learned one app you had learned them all, and you'd learned them on any machine you cared to use.

They aren't ging to use it, only those who want it, will.

Incorrect; anyone who uses the computers of those who want it, or most recently used by those who want it, will be troubled by it.

You can change the look of an interface (such as with themes) without too much trouble, but changing the feel -where things are- is dangerous business. This is why Apple does not allow that.

To say that it should only be an option for those who read right to left languages; is to admit that the scrolbars in the left should be an option.

No, because I don't say that it should be an option for those who read right to left: I say it should be the interface, with no option to go to the other side.

It should not be optional. This is one of the only aspects of UI where the theory is actually supported by real-world evidence. Try it yourself.

[HOMBRESINIESTRO]

So okay, we have pros and cons. I see some real benefits on having it on the right now after reading your postings. But there is one thing remainig that makes it much better on smaller screens: when you drag a window out of the screen on the right hand you cannot access the scrollbars anymore. This happens often to me and I hate having to rearrange the window. This would be solved with the scrollbars on the left.

Moreover, because of the way I - and I can only talk about my subjective view - work, it never happens to me that I drag the window out of the left side of the screen.

[MacManMikeOSX]

I like the scroll bar right where it is, that might be because I predominantly surf in Hebrew, and a little Arabic. Though I think it would make more sense for english users on the left, aligned with all the other interface features.

Mk

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Millennium:
In other words, because you don't agree with it, it must be wrong for everyone: a classic inductivist error. David Every has a lot of problems, but most of his UI stuff is backed up by solid research. I daresay your anecdotal evidence is not.

Question: How often does David Every prefer some other method of doing anything over the traditional Mac way?

Answer: Very seldom. He's the Mac equivalent of Paul Thurott.

[jasong]

Originally posted by paully dub:
. . . for those who often will select portions of text, or click on a link, or what have you, the content flows from left to right, thus the end of the line being close to the scroll bar makes perfect sense, and saves me from having to move the pointer all the way back to the left side of the window. Indeed as the need to scroll usually happens at the bottom right hand side of the page . . .

Expand a Safari window to your normal size, click the back button and then scroll to the top of the page (if you aren't there already, scroll to the bottom if you are). Back button is in the top left, if I want to scroll the page, at the very least I need to move the cursor all the way across the screen horizontally if not diagonally.

The example you give sounds more like a word processor, with the cursor inserted at a given point. If that's the case, you don't need the scroll bar at all, since you can just keep typing to move down the page.

Millennium, you make a great point about consistency across machines. I use SideTrack on my PowerBook and people get completely confused when they use it since it doesn't act at all like they would expect. How often does this happen? It maybe averages out to once a month. You know what a great solution is? Multiple Users. The guest account doesn't have SideTrack configured, so it acts like it should. I would hate to lose that functionality for the rare occasion someone else uses my machine with my user account. Of course the difference here is I am using a hack (not really, but it isn't standard Apple behavior), not an Apple sanctioned design.

Anyway, I file this under, great idea, never happen.

-- Jason

[ReggieX]

It's not intuitive at all. NeXT put all their controls backwards to avoid getting sued by Apple.

[ManOfSteal]

[Targon]

Originally posted by HOMBRESINIESTRO:
This is a much more intuitive way. I would love if you could simply change it in a pref pane. This would also avoid the conflict between the resize corner on the lower right and the vertical scrollbar, as horizontal scrollbars are not so often used.

Last not least, and that is the most important aspect, windows are still navigatable if they are dragged outside the viewable area of the screen on the right.

Here's a screenshot of OmniWeb2 on NeXTSTEP. I think they did it right back then:



What do you think?

Completely agree. I have long since been an outspoken proponent of 'Left Sided Scroll Bars'. Was very disappointed this was not included in Mac OS X not even as an option.

To me it makes perfect sense, we in the western world type from left to right, back/forward buttons in this browser and all icons in all tools bars in ever app start from the left, Finder Menus start from the left, it makes sense scroll bars be on the left also.

No sense in moving the cursor to the other side of the screen to scroll...thats just dumb in my opinion.

[Targon]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Actually, this isn't true, at least for cultures whose dominant tongue reads test left to right. There have been actual studies about this. Read on.

Buttons in dialog boxes are on the right, the Trash is on the right, the clock is on the right... why? It has to do with a thing called prioritization. David Every explains this concept as applied to the desktop at http://www.mackido.com/Interface/Screen.html, but it applies just as well to individual windows; the concept is the same.

Think about this. We'll assume a left-to-right language for the time being. Typically, one uses a scrollbar relatively rarely; the vast majority of a user's time is spent reading text, and very little is spent on scrolling. Clearly, therefore, a scrollbar is of lower priority than the text window, and so it should be placed "after" the text, which in an LTR language means on the right.

We can even break this down further and go into the scrollbars themselves. When it comes to how scrollbars are used, most users scroll a page at a time by clicking in the trough, or freely by dragging the scroll thumb. The two scroll buttons see very little use by comparison: once again, lower priority, so they should be placed after (in this case, below) the other controls. There is actually a side benefit to this: when users do need to fine-tune where they've scrolled, it is faster to place the buttons close together.

What side a scroll bar is on should not be on option, because some people will choose to do it. This is Very, Very Bad for interface consistency across computers. A user who moves from machine to machine will have a great deal of trouble adjusting to a scrollbar side to which he or she isn't accustomed. You can try this yourself; some X11 programs, such as WTerm, allow their scrollbars to be placed on the left. Give it a shot, and see how easily the switch comes to you. The answer is dead-simple: it won't come easily at all. If it becomes an option, then it should be strictly tied to the language being used: LTR scripts place the scrollbar on the right, and RTL scripts place it on the left. This preserves consistency inside languages -which people switch far less frequently than they do computers- while preserving priority across languages.

oh yeah i remember David Every, nice guy and great website even back in 1997. Oh an yeah he explains this issue perfectly, nice one for bringing this up for the peeps milleniyumyum

[Targon]

Originally posted by ReggieX:
It's not intuitive at all. NeXT put all their controls backwards to avoid getting sued by Apple.

Wot a crock of sh!t !!! Why has Apple not sued, M$, Sun, SGI etc, they all used right sided scroll bars. BTW Apple does not own any patents on right sided scroll bars.

The NeXT developers were a bunch of forward thinking ppl with innovative idea's. Left sided scroll bars were not added 'just to be different' or to 'avoid being sue'd' or any other preposterous theory's im sure some of you are capable of inventing.

crackheadz

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Synotic:
To Tetenal on "every application being built with the assumption that the scroll bar . . ." It would seem that regardless which side the vertical scrollbar is on, it would take up the same amount of space. If an application is using a standard scroll view, I bet it could at least be an option.

My memory must be a little fuzzy. What's the 10.0-clean Carbon function for creating a "standard scroll view"? Because I don't remember one.

Also, as for "what's located on the right side": Controls are very commonly shown after the objects on which they act. Think of Web forms. Which side makes more sense to you to put the Submit button on? The side that comes after you've seen the object to which it's attached. Inspector windows normally go to the right of the window they inspect, icons on the desktop go (theoretically) after active window content. It's like Millennium said — a matter of precedence.

[blackbird_1.0]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
I myself prefer them on the right, but I think it should be made an option to have them on the left.

Exactly, I'd love this as an option in 10.5 or any future MacOS.

I was wondering, couldn't something like this be done with a future version of Tinkertool, or is it impossible currently?

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by blackbird_1.0:
Exactly, I'd love this as an option in 10.5 or any future MacOS.

I was wondering, couldn't something like this be done with a future version of Tinkertool, or is it impossible currently?

All TinkerTool does is turning on hidden features by modifying preference files. If the hidden feature doesn't exist already, TinkerTool can't do much.

[Sven G]

Put in a much more elementary way, IMHO, a scrollbar is an accessory item of a window (or pane, list, etc.): so, in a document-based approach, it should be on the right, in the same way that hard drives on the desktop are on the right side (at least in OS X) - the document is the most important item. In Windows, BTW, the "official" justification for the taskbar being on the bottom is also similar: the document window is more important, and the taskbar is just a way of managing what relates to the windows (it's seen more as a dock than as an apple menu, thus, even if the start menu is integrated in the bar).

In a few words, probably it's more intuitive, after all, to have scrollbars on the default right side - even if the meaning of "intuitive" is also rather relative, as has often been noted, and also depends on what one is used to.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by Targon:
Wot a crock of sh!t !!! Why has Apple not sued, M$, Sun, SGI etc, they all used right sided scroll bars. BTW Apple does not own any patents on right sided scroll bars.

Learn your history before opening your mouth and calling people names - Apple did sue Microsoft over the look and feel of windows when it was introduced (and right-handed scroll bars were a part of that). They lost. Mainly due to a lousy licensing contract and bad lawyers, but they did lose. Which is why they haven't sued anyone else over 'look and feel.'

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Targon:
Wot a crock of sh!t !!! Why has Apple not sued, M$, Sun, SGI etc, they all used right sided scroll bars.

Because the GUIs used by Sun and SGI were not developed by Sun and SGI. At the time this all started, the most common X11-based GUIs were Athena -which used left-handed scrollbars- and Motif. Both were developed as open standards, so there was no one to sue.

As for MS, Apple did sue them, remember?

The NeXT developers were a bunch of forward thinking ppl with innovative idea's.

That does not make them infallible gods. Apple made some mistakes with GUI design. So did NeXT. The left-handed scrollbar was an example of a NeXT mistake.