Smooth scrolling???

Thanks, but you don't seem to comprehend the problem.

The global system preference setting allows only the speed of the scrolling.

This is not a system issue, it is an application specific issue.

iPhoto jumps a large number of pixels each scroll tick of the mighty mouse.

It does it instantaneously instead of smoothly speeding up and slowing down depending on the number of "ticks" or speed of my spin. The same with Safari and other applications (all somewhat differently).

If I change the global system setting, it merely makes my scrolling "jump" less far. Meaning that in every application I will have to use my finger to scroll much more to got the same distance. I like to scroll a lot I just want it smooth.

The point is that it should speed up and slow down just the way the iPhone does and just the way the multitouch pad does. Start slowly and speed up and then slow down. This way it represents the physicality of the objects I'm manipulating and my human brain will easily be able to track the movement instead of an instantaneous jump which is not something human brains can automatically do without thinking. I don't want to think, I just want to know where my photos went.

It's even worse in that some cases the jump replaces the photos while they're still registered, giving a weird animation sortof effect.

I don't think this is what Apple would consider a cool benefit, considering there are much better ways of doing animation. I think iPhoto, Safari, etc should be retooled to at least use the benefits of Leopard (if they're not already doing that for the Mighty Mice) so that from place to place everything moves in a way which supports human perception.

So to answer your question, using the System preferences is totally acceptable but totally useless if you were actually wanting to solve the problem that millions of people all over the planet are suffering from.

Note: Picasa from Google on a Windows machine does a great job of smooth scrolling while not missing a beat in speed. They have some cool algorithm which quickly blurs everything thus reducing the resolution but it is barely perceptible.

I inspected that preference. It is already checked but still, using the mighty mouse scroll nub it is not smooth.

Clicking the arrows in the scroll bar: also not smooth.

If I click a photo, and then use the keyboard arrows, it does scroll smoothly: I see the selected photo become highlighted and then the canvas smoothly slides so that the selected photo is in view.

I don't understand why that same technology can't be used for the scroll wheel and the scroll arrows.

It should even be used when you're clicking in the scrollbar area so the canvas smoothly scrolls to some distant location in the photo list.

There is no reason to "jump" the canvas ever.

TD, are you using Leopard and a Mighty Mouse?

James

It's smart that Apple leverages their technologies. It's brilliant actually. Use Quicktime EVERYWHERE! Makes everything work consistently, makes everything instantly upgradeable, reduces the number of needed OS programmers by a factor of 100 allows for an OS to grow and get better and faster...

+Of course the opposite being the supreme ignoramity of Micorosft and their inability to even have the Excel guys talk to the Word guys so they end up writing the same functional code tens or hundreds of times which works slightly differently but sortof "looks" the same. (I have no qualms saying Microsoft Windows *****!!! There's no point being in the closet about that anymore.)+

So if this is the case with Quicktime, then it's time for upgrading Quicktime! It should handle "motion blurring" when the things it's rendering are moved onscreen. Which in this case means reducing the resolution of the content enough that it doesn't kill the processor and still allows a smooth slide. I can see how this might somehow be dovetailed with Core Animation.

On the other hand, as I mentioned, it does smoothly scroll when I use the keyboard to navigate, easing in and out of the transitions. Also the same problems happen in Safari and other programs (Word of course). I can even see this making window dragging look better. And the degradation should be scalable based upon the rendering/processing load. (Picasa works well on even the slow Windows machines I've used.) So it should really be doable whether with the MM or the scroll buttons etc...

What? I can't say *****?

Lacking another mouse, I'm tring the same mouse on a Powerbook G4 Leopard. Same jumpscroll with Mighty Mouse (Corded BTW). Set scrolling in System Preferences on lowest setting, same thing. Grid stays in almost the same place while photos jump up and down. Same with keyboard navigation. Using the arrow buttons in the scrollbar clicking once slowly, the canvas DID scroll smoothly, but clicking faster or holding the arrow produced same jumping.

Maybe it's processor/OS dependent? With a faster processor in 10.5 it would scroll smoothly? That's apparently what you're seeing.

My argument is that at some point any scrolling of anything should always be smooth (defined as accellerating and decelerating in a physical way that matches what humans perceive as movement while also matching their expectations based on the way they manipulated things via mouse, trackpad, multitouch, scrollnub) especially as screen resolution and pixel depth is about at it's limits but processors keep getting faster.

In Firefox, the smallest scroll is basically one whole line of text, whereas in Safari, it seems to be much physical, not as smooth as iPhone scrolling, but close.

I guess the techniques used for multitouch on the iPhone will eventually be everywhere. I'm just wondering what's takin' so long???

My argument is for for a smooth scrolling iPhoto window so that I and all iPhoto users will better be able to use the product. I don't imagine there are many to argue with on that point. I was wondering how many people faced the same issue though. It seems somewhat system specific. I wonder if Apeture does it?

I'll definitely send Apple a note.