Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll bars invisible

Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by BitwiseFool on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:14PM (#26414909)

One of Apple's core design philosophies is that when something is not in active use it should be hidden from view. Through this perspective it makes sense that they would hide scrollbars when the user isn't doing any scrolling.

That being said, I would rather have it always be visible because I'm not that much of a minimalist and I still think that non active information has value at a glance.

Edit: This doesn't mean Apple tries to hide everything that isn't in active use. It's a design convention, not a law.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by inetknght on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:23PM (#26415023)

> when something is not in active use it should be hidden from view

My mouse isn't over it or clicking on it but it's still being actively used.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by FigmentEngine on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:20PM (#26414993)

i don't have a mac - but a scroll bar does two things, allow scrolling and show scroll position.

does the mouse cursor disappear when not being moved? does the text in a terminal disappear when not being edited?

seems like dual function elements where one function is indication should be exempt...

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by robin_reala on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:25PM (#26415050)

On macOS the convention is for the mouse cursor to disappear when you start typing.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by doodpants on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:32PM (#26415155)

I miss this behavior all the time when using Windows. I recently discovered that Windows actually has a setting to enable this behavior, but it's up to each individual application to check for the setting and implement the behavior. And as far as I can tell, literally no one does.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by godshatter on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @03:56PM (#26416115)

On a similar note, I get annoyed with how Excel won't show the highlighted row or cell when moving focus to another window. Sometimes I want to look at that specific row while using another program, and it's hard to find the data that was just highlighted when that disappears. I don't for the life of me understand what problem that behavior is supposed to help with.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by Descon on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:23PM (#26415025)

This explains why I can never find anything in XCode...

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by heavyset_go on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:31PM (#26415138)

It also explains why discoverability on iOS is incredibly poor for those who haven't used it often or before.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by BitwiseFool on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:27PM (#26415078)

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I feel like I'm always jockeying tabs and panes looking for buttons to click. I waste so much time doing this.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by wk_end on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:20PM (#26414988)

I wonder how long it'll be before the iconic global menu bar is gone from macOS when not in use?

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by tomku on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:25PM (#26415046)

That's already an option you can set, since at least El Cap.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by tokamak-teapot on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:34PM (#26415172)

I would guess the reason that auto-hide is not switched on by default is that it’s jarring and ugly to have it appear and disappear.

With scrollbars, auto hiding /re-appearing isn’t even something I notice happening.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by inetknght on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:23PM (#26415032)

Browsers on mobile devices already do this and it's infuriating

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by whichdan on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:32PM (#26415156)

Having to scroll to get any controls to appear is such a mediocre UX

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by adolph on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @02:40PM (#26415234)

I just tap the address part of the top bar and it appears. This is different from a top of screen tap which scrolls to the top.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by inetknght on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @05:57PM (#26417602)

> I just tap the address part of the top bar and it appears

Yet another unintuitive undiscovered feature because Apple decided to change 20 years of best practices

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by whichdan on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @03:40PM (#26415910)

huh, I never realized tapping the address was separate from tapping the top of the screen

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by prionassembly on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @03:35PM (#26415847)

This was possible back in 10.5 and 10.6 already.

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Re:Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to make scroll ba... by pseudalopex on Wednesday March 10, 2021 @03:04PM (#26415480)

I'd call it a trend not a core philosophy.

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