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tvfollower · Nov 10, 2003, 04:07 PM

I'm a switcher-to-be, and I was wondering...

What's up with OS X not having smooth scrolling?

gorickey · Nov 10, 2003, 04:14 PM

It does.

neilw · Nov 10, 2003, 04:31 PM

I have found it to behave strangely, at least with Safari.

If I hold down the up or down arrow key for a while, when I let go the scrolling does not stop right there, but jumps way ahead. I found it essentially impossible to get it to stop where I want it, so I disabled it and moved on.

This effect doesn't happen when smooth scrolling is off, and it doesn't *seem* to happen with a scroll wheel either. But I use the arrow keys a lot, and so smooth scrolling turned out pretty much useless for me.

DVD Plaza · Nov 10, 2003, 07:08 PM

I love the new scrolling effect, extremely smooth and very cool

TheDisaster · Nov 10, 2003, 07:30 PM

I don't like the smooth scrolling in Panther. It doesn't seem like you're scrolling down the page, it seems like you're pulling it along by a rope, and the harder you pull, the farther it flies past you. Not a big deal to me though, I was happy with regular scrolling pre-10.3, no loss here.

Cadaver · Nov 10, 2003, 07:42 PM

Smooth scrolling works nicely for me... Dual G5, Logitech mouse drivers.

Shaddim · Nov 10, 2003, 09:57 PM

Looks and works beautifully on my dual 1.42 and my PB. I don't have it activated on my B&W or iMac.

mozart11 · Nov 10, 2003, 11:41 PM

I honestly don't see a difference with it turned on or off. Using a Titanium 1ghz and 10.3.1

sniffer · Nov 11, 2003, 03:06 AM

Just tested the smooth scrolling. What a pile of crap. Probably work better on QE enabled and faster machines than mine thought.

namannik · Nov 11, 2003, 03:39 AM

Originally posted by neilw:
I have found it to behave strangely, at least with Safari.

If I hold down the up or down arrow key for a while, when I let go the scrolling does not stop right there, but jumps way ahead. I found it essentially impossible to get it to stop where I want it, so I disabled it and moved on.

This effect doesn't happen when smooth scrolling is off, and it doesn't *seem* to happen with a scroll wheel either. But I use the arrow keys a lot, and so smooth scrolling turned out pretty much useless for me.

I haven't tried out Panther (still have 10.2), but that same exact thing happens on Windows with smooth scrolling turned on. You'd think Apple would have implemented it better than Microsoft...

kooBi · Nov 11, 2003, 09:21 AM

You'd think Apple would have implemented it better than Microsoft... [/B]

maybe they want to sell more units

dr. zoidberg · Nov 11, 2003, 09:32 AM

yeah, smooth scrolling only works fine with some sort of scroll wheel... it�s kinda jaggy when using the keyboard-arrows. also, it only works for cocoa-apps (i would guess it it has to be specifically enabled in carbon apps by the apps themselves). i love it btw...

KidRed · Nov 11, 2003, 10:40 AM

Big difference smooth scrolling makes. However, from my experiences, it won't work (or maybe as well) if you have mouse drivers installed. My Logitech mouseworks wouldn't let smooth scrolling work. I had to delete them and restart to get it working.

Smooth scrolling is smooth, but it won;t be on a page the size of macnn with all the text, it will stutter some.

Cadaver · Nov 11, 2003, 01:47 PM

Originally posted by KidRed:
Big difference smooth scrolling makes. However, from my experiences, it won't work (or maybe as well) if you have mouse drivers installed. My Logitech mouseworks wouldn't let smooth scrolling work. I had to delete them and restart to get it working.

Smooth scrolling is smooth, but it won;t be on a page the size of macnn with all the text, it will stutter some.

While I've not tried it without my mouse drivers, smooth scrolling seems to work fine for me with the Logitech drivers installed. Perhaps without them it would be different, but I'd loose the extra buttons on my MX-700. Perhaps smooth scrolling would be different without the drivers, but I quite like the way it functions presently.

I also have a Logitech keyboard, so I'd still want the Logitech drivers even if I switched the mouse to USB Overdrive.

Sharky K. · Nov 11, 2003, 02:21 PM

Apple did a really bad job implementing smooth scrolling. First it doesn't affect all apps, just a few. Second it makes scrolling a lot slower and not just "smoother". I really like 10.3 but if there was no way to turn that option off I would have been using 10.2 now. I am glad the option is available.

Appleman · Nov 11, 2003, 02:27 PM

Originally posted by kooBi:
maybe they want to sell more units

cybergoober · Nov 11, 2003, 02:59 PM

To those who say they see no difference.

Try this:

Turn smooth scrolling on.
Load a web page in Safari.
Hit the "page down" key (or space bar for that matter) on your keyboard.

Turn smooth scrolling off.
Load a web page in Safari.
Hit the page down key (or space bar for that matter) on your keyboard.

See a difference now?

While not perfect, I'm quite impressed at how smoothly it scrolls the MacNN forums on my lowly G3 iMac DV+ 450 with Microsoft Wireless Optical Blue mouse, running the IntelliPoint 3.1 drivers (need to be able to configure my wheel button).

sniffer · Nov 11, 2003, 03:28 PM

Originally posted by cybergoober:
[B]
While not perfect, I'm quite impressed at how smoothly it scrolls the MacNN forums on my lowly G3 iMac DV+ 450 with Microsoft Wireless Optical Blue mouse, running the IntelliPoint 3.1 drivers (need to be able to configure my wheel button).

So it works nice with scroll wheel then?
Hope they make it work better with key arrows. Especially because of the portables. I use key arrows to navigate all the time while using my iBook on my lap where it stays 90% of the time while in use.

cybergoober · Nov 11, 2003, 05:41 PM

Originally posted by sniffer:
So it works nice with scroll wheel then?
Hope they make it work better with key arrows. Especially because of the portables. I use key arrows to navigate all the time while using my iBook on my lap where it stays 90% of the time while in use.

On my TiBook I've been using SideTrack for scrolling. Took some getting used to, but is pretty cool. You can define portions of the trackpad for vertical and horizontal scrolling. As well as tapping the trackpad for right-click.

snerdini · Nov 11, 2003, 05:50 PM

It slows down scrolling in Safari on my MDD Dual 867...turning it back off...

cambolo · Nov 11, 2003, 06:33 PM

I just went to scrolling on my trackpad using UControl. Works great if you have a laptop.

lawgeek · Nov 16, 2003, 02:23 PM

Safari works well with smooth scrolling, but all my other web browsers (OmniWeb, Firebird) all exhibit very jerky scrolling behavior with smooth scrolling using a scroll wheel. Has anyone else experienced the same thing? It makes those browsers unuseable.

Arkham_c · Nov 16, 2003, 03:17 PM

It's very performance-dependent. I have an iBook/600 and it's terrible on it (the "rope" metaphor above is an apt description). I also have a dual-G5 and it's quite nice on that box, and quite responsive.

Love Calm Quiet · Nov 16, 2003, 03:35 PM

I had never tried turning on SmoothScrolling, but on my 667MHz Tibook, scrolling this MacNN forum always seemed fairly smoothe - never occurred to me that it could get better (I have seen public library PCs - talk about unpredictable scrolling(doesn't stop when I stop).

But I found that SmootheScrolling on gives me smoother movement during PART of the scroll - but will then jump some - and may finish up scrolling after I've stopped the process.

Hmm... I think i like the smoothness of SS being OFF!

DanielPritchard · Nov 16, 2003, 05:15 PM

It's on, on my 12" PB, I like it, and it's smoother if I use my wheel. Logitech drivers are installed.