From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: splite@purdue.edu
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] scrollbar
Message-ID: <20040304205609.GC11430@sigint.cs.purdue.edu>
References: <20040304190457.GA11430@sigint.cs.purdue.edu> <237641cacfecc9570bd05d826e0f938b@vitanuova.com>
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Date: Thu,  4 Mar 2004 15:56:09 -0500
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On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 07:15:18PM +0000, rog@vitanuova.com wrote:
> sorry, this is veering sharply off-topic, but i have

Oh, I dunno.  I think Comparative GUIology is relevant, especially where
Plan 9 diverges from every "major" platform.

> to say the thing that annoys me most about scrollbars
> on the right is that it forces me to have the entire
> window on screen - i can't read the text if the left hand
> side is off screen, and i can't scroll it if the right hand side is
> (and often if you resize it smaller, a horizontal scrollbar,
> that bane of humanity, appears to make things even worse)

I considered that before but decided the argument was bogus.  If you have
unused window area on the right, make the window narrower.  If not, why
cover up the right side of the window?  If you truly don't care about the
right-side content, then what do you lose by making the window narrower?
You won't have need to scroll horizontally anyway.

I realize that some might move windows partially off the right side of the
screen as a space-saving measure, but that seems more like an argument for
better window management than against right-side scrollbars.

I'm really not advocating for right-side scrollbars; I was just guessing
as to why Apple might have put them there.