About the little scrollbar arrows...

Apple - Support - Mac 101

Sorry CT, this wasn't very useful - too general. I've been working with Macs since the Mac128 and PC's since the 70's so wasn't looking to take a 2 hour tutorial. I was hoping for a specific post on the topic of the arrow scroll portion of the scrollbar.

However I did discover that Xcode does single line scroll with the arrow keys and textedit does not.

I'm still upset at Apple software engineering/marketing for this scroll bar change that removed the arrow icons.

Kyle,

GREAT tip! That should help a lot of the folks I work with. You're right, it's a kludge, but it helps a lot!!

Thanks!

John

Switch 101

Why post Switch 101 and not give any comment or directions? I couldn't find any information about the arrows there.

I'm not switching from Windows to Mac. I'm switched from Mac to Lion (a less friendly version of Mac) and the arrows are gone!

The arrows are gone, my guess is that it is fallout of a merge with iOS as single line scroll on a touch screen with arrows is not the best way to handle that for a touch device. Thats fine with me... however my iMac has a mouse, and I want "that" device to behave has it always has... so I want the arrows back. Eventually some bright hacker will come up with a patch to the windows manager for OSX that will fix this, if Apple doesn't.

I don't mind continious improvement, but for professional engineering work, I want those arrows on my desktop.

If I have to boot Linux to get them long term, then thats where I'll go. (Hate windoze too much to go there).

The nice thing about Apple hardware/software over Linux, is that it's stable and well supported, for the most part.

I'm not sure why someone hasn't done a nice web page about the OSX lion web page. If I had time, I'd register on GoDaddy and setup and entire domain dedicated to fixing this single problem with user side solutions.

Then I could post go to http://fixesforOSXLionMissingArrows.org And get the solutions in forms of tools apps that have arrows etc. I think a smart developer could write an app that implements it's own scroll bar and takes over control from the OS, to give us what we want. I just need a textedit app with arrows in the scroll bars for now, and a web browser with arrows in the scroll bars, and a mail client with arrows in the scroll bars. Thats three apps with arrows in the scroll bars that need to be developed to overcome the OSX shortcomings. There is a lot of engineering talent out there that can fix this... in fact I suspect there may be one or two useful engineers at Apple, if they can get out from under the iOS mandate issue that hacked these little arrows.

Maybe http://www.rescuethearrow.org might be a good website. Donate now! The little arrows have been clubbed like the small baby seals! Save them before its too late! The Lion ate the poor defenseless arrows!

Senseless rant. To keep it short, go back to Snow Leopard.

Pete

No scroll arrows is completely bogus! I need them and want them. At least make them something to turn on/off in preferences!! BRING BACK THE SCROLL ARROWS. I CAN DRIVE MY CAR WITHOUT TURN SIGNALS, BUT... This is so frustrating. I would revert back to Snow Leopard, but it is not compatible with iCloud. Oh, and Lion has disabled all my MS Office files. Need to shell out for an upgrade.

So, who is listening to all our rants????

That was my point earlier.

There needs to be a solution for having a mouse command to scroll one line up or down. I'd accept a CMD/CTRL click option, but I suspect most applications have already overloaded them.

Assuming OSX Lion is still using a version of the X-Windows system for GUI display, the scroll bar arrows are a function of the window manager which implements the capability, catches the mouse events and forwards them onto the application to scroll up/down one row.

So... it's just a patch to the window manager... probabably un-commenting out the lines of code that used to implement this function. This isn't rocket science at the software level.

However it seems to be difficult to get the point across that OSX Lion has removed a capability that users want and need restored.

-R

petermac level 3 proves the point that counter-innovation is inevitable and will be defended by its authors. aggregate productivity will always progress at the smallest increment if it improves at all, as equilibrium is a more rigid law than gravity.

how about those sroll bar arrows?

Rick,

LMAO. Thanks I'm going to look that up when I get a chance 🙂.

rick wintomac wrote:

petermac level 3 proves the point that counter-innovation is inevitable and will be defended by its authors. aggregate productivity will always progress at the smallest increment if it improves at all, as equilibrium is a more rigid law than gravity.

how about those sroll bar arrows?

Appreciate the transcript and it's progressively more positive approach to returning the scroll bar arrows that were left out of the core system of Lion. Words are powerful things, as too are Apple, so I wish you adieu in your quest to find them hidden.

But as rossCantChangeAfterYouCreatYourAccount (wonderfully original name by the way) has so clearly pointed out

I'd accept a CMD/CTRL click option, but I suspect most applications have already overloaded them.

Assuming OSX Lion is still using a version of the X-Windows system for GUI display, the scroll bar arrows are a function of the window manager which implements the capability, catches the mouse events and forwards them onto the application to scroll up/down one row.

So... it's just a patch to the window manager... probabably un-commenting out the lines of code that used to implement this function. This isn't rocket science........................................................................ ....

So thanks for you marvellous and intellectually hybrid approach to a Forum Topic that you failed to mention.

Good Luck

Pete

I hope everyone who's responded to this and the other Missing Arrows/Scroll Bar Forum chats; has also filed Complaints with the powers that be @ Apple... This fact that they've blundered and left out such an insanely, intuitively obvious mechanism for navigating item by item in MacMAIL Alone, should be cause to get a patch built for either General Preferences, or Mail; or very likely, many of us will likely pay MICROSOFT for Outlook for Mac, given those folks are smart enough to recognize the business/enterprise user's Main productivity tool and even quasi-Database tool is Mail.

I was Blown Away in a negative way; when I did the upgrade to Lion; only seconds later, needing to find a Sent Email from yesterday; that was probably 30-40 emails down that Sent box; and found myself totally baffled, befuzzled and flumoxed at the fact, that I could NOT simply scroll down my Sent emails, without instantly going into a hyper-roll down out days/weeks/months! of emails! NOOOOOO I only wanted to find the single note, sent 24 hours before; to RESEND IT! Are you kidding?? Something so basic, so fundamental, so stupid simple that a 5th grader should have insisted it be a key/core function; and now, no capability.

And, IF they were more OPEN Source minded; we'd already have a Coder or 2 offering some third party, Free Widget/Gadget we could all download and FIX this problem, OR Is it Really Apple's clever way to attempt to drive every one of us into a touch screen navigation model, and screw the rest of the masses that have grown up on click to scrowl devices??

Stop the insanity Apple; get real and get the Arrow/Scrowl Bar's back to the way they were; and sorry Pete, it makes no sense as other say; to downgrade; when I will loose email by being FORCE Upgraded If I want to keep the pleasure of Mail after June 30, when all SnowLeopard users have to migrate up; or risk loosing @mac.com or @me.com mail services... So much for Apple being Business/Enterprise tools of choice...

Looking @ the Microsoft Suite for Mac now; since I'd skeptical, since their has been over a year's worth of bantering on this topic, and apparently, NO move by Apple to offer up a FIX... So, seems like there's really No Apple monitoring on this topic of merit, just a place for ****** off folks like me to Rant.

Thats because it's a user to user forum and not Apple. Perhaps you should read the Term Of Use before agreeing to them.

Good Luck

Pete

I've now tried a couple of ways to bring back the precision I need when I'm navigating large documents. Neither approaches brought back the scroll arrows but at least I'm not getting too frustrated any more.

The first approach was with a Microsoft mouse. Using the Intellipoint software, which runs in the System Prefs, I was able to set it up so that the scroll wheel would make single-line scrolls vertically and in large spreadsheets I could scroll single columns horizontally. That was perhaps the best result I found for precise navigation of very big documents on my 30-inch Cinema Display.

The second approach was with Apple's Magic Mouse. I was keen to try that because, being an Apple product I assumed it must somehow be designed to work best with their current operating system. I'm using that now and it is okay for what I need. You do have to be careful though because it is extremely senstive and I often find the documents swishing around the screen unintented. But with a bit of care it does the job. One small warning: if you had previously run the Microsoft Intellipoint software like I had done then you need to uninstall it before using a Magic Mouse, because otherwise you are unable to get the right version of the mouse panel in the System Prefs.

I know I'm not helping anyone get their scroll arrows back and I can't say how well either of these mice will help in all circumstances, but maybe trying a different mouse, like I did, will help some of the folks here.