About the little scrollbar arrows...

MDBfromvenice wrote:

With all the posts about the missing arrows, has anybody heard from Apple? Do they even read these discussions?

I guess we all will have to think IOS and start gesturing with the many fingered flips, what about people with disabilities who have limited control of their fingers?

No, Apple does not read these user-to-user help forums designed to save them money by not requiring so many Banglalore slum dwellers to man the call centers. They only show up here to monitor us and expunge inappropriate content (censor being yet another Calcutta resident paid $0.10/hour while sipping kat at some rundown internet cafe).

A news article on how Bethesda had to purchase Samsung tablets so the disabled vets could use them might go a long way to helping the ergonomy "geniuses" see the light.

Crap, this HURTS.

After the carpal tunnel surgery failed to help -- delayed too long by employer's doctor claiming it was just "tendonitis" until the nerve damage became obvious -- I've had to use "the biggest possible trackball" to be able to use the computer. That's either a British Trackerball, or the Crayola Kids' Trackball -- giant monster trackballs. Key is they're too big to grip, can't squeeze -- so don't hurt.

None of the mouse or pad alternatives avoid those closing-gripping-squeezing

uses of the hand.

I can't keep changing what I use to suit Apple's stupid idea about what looks good in their ads.

I got Virtualbox running and I'm using Windows now -- on the Mini as a virtual machine

It has big wide scrollbars.

s!u!c!k!s (hello automated censor, or are you just hovering over me as I type from afar?)

But doesn't hurt.

I am really quite angry about this rather stupid decision made by Apple. I have a physical disability and use a specialist trackerball. Scrolling up and down was never a problem in previous versions of Mac OS 9 / X but it is now, and is worse than the scrolling in Windoze. As an Apple addict, I hate to admit that.

It must be a real problem for disabled people using single switch access to control the mouse pointer. I can't see an easy way to do it.

Come on Apple, get with it, please....

None of us work for Apple, so if you are unsatisfied here with advice given by other users them please ring Apple customer support about this issue. They may rewrite the Lion system for you.

Good luck

Pete

I also have a physical disability and am finding because of the lack of arrows, I have started using my Windows pc. I think it's ridiculous how Apple has set up several UI options to allow those with limitations to use their products, and has now made it more challenging by taking out something that is basic and necessary for some of us. Steve Jobs was the heart and sould of Apple. If his ideas are going to be changed then I will not be purchasing another Apple product.

UPDATE

I decided to call Apple support in hopes of finding a way around this problem. I was told they are leaning more towards the trackpad, and there is no way to get the arrows back. Hopefully with enough complaints they'll fix this issue.

I e-mailed Apple Accessibility about this issue, and as always, found that using humour got a response...!

Hello,

Thank you for your email. We appreciate the feedback and will pass this on to the appropriate people for their consideration.

Apple Accessibility

Dear Apple Accessibility Team.

I use my Apple Mac desktop with KeyStrokes and am forced to use OS X 10.7 as I use an iPad. I would rather be using 10.6 as I have cerebral palsy, and never for one minute thought that Apple would actually reduce the accessibility of OS X.

What am I on about I hear you ask?

I shall tell you, just carry on reading…….

Once upon a time, there were two little arrows, one called Up, and one called Down. They lived very happily together for many years, but one day, somebody at Apple decided to take their (presumably small bit) of code away. They were suddenly gone, and many, many physically / visually disabled people missed them very much. All of those people were very sad, and miss those arrows very much… No longer can they click on Up and Down when they want to scroll up and down… This made people very unhappy, and some so miserable, that they actually contemplated the worst…

DEATH BY WINDOWS.

Please Apple, bring Up and Down Arrows back.

This is what my therapist has recommended. There can be no other remedy to this complaint, and it should be included in a tiny, tiny little update.

Many thanks,

Sarah

Martin Gallo wrote:

For what this is worth, I submitted some feedbacl to Apple about this problem. They offered my a spot on the bete test team. I declined when I learned that there are no scroll arrows to test!

😁 😁 😁

Best post on this forum, ever!

Why not just use the arrow keys on the keyboard? And turn on the "Always" show scrollbars option in the "General" section of System Preferences.

If the scrollbar is always showing, in addition to arrow keys you can now slide the little gray rounded rectangle around OR click above or below it to move by a bit larger amount than going up/down via arrow keys on the keyboard. This can also be accomplished using the page up/page down buttons if you're using an external keyboard, or if you're on a laptop, by holding down the "Fn" (function) key before pressing the arrow buttons on the keyboard.

I always thought using those arrows at the very top and bottom of the scrollbar was the most inefficient method of scrolling anyway. What do they accomplish that you can't accomplish just as well with the above methods?

Howdy crunch483,

While you are correct about using the arrow keys (alternate method), the complaint isn't that there is no way to do the single line scroll, the complaint is that for specific tasks using them was EASIER!

I'm a software developer. I built my first computer in 1978 or so in high school. I have been writing software since then, so perhaps I'm an old timer. The specific task that is made annoyingly unuseable without the little arrow scroll bars is lining up two pieces of software code side by side to review them for small differences. Often you are moving the cursor around with the mouse and highlighting/deselecting regions of text. And in this instance, having the little arrow bars was a convienent way to re-align the two different files to be exactly aligned.

Having the feature disappear, completely distroys a work flow method that has been built in for so many years it was automatic. This makes seemingly mindless easy tasks halt, and think... how else can I do this. Of course, the easiest way to do this is to just do it on the Windoze platform. I'm developing software for a Windoze box anyway (it's my job)... I just happened to like using my iMac for all my computer work, as it was (prior to 10.7) superior for all those tasks. This is no longer the case.... eventually I will be forced to adapt, but in the meantime, I don't have to like it.

I am now officially casting a curse on the middle management types at Apple who endorsed this OSX10.7 change. I herby proclaim that Mordac the Preventer of Information Services shall curse them with annoying limited productivity, and intermittant network outages for such a period as the scroll bar arrows remain absent from desktop GUI implementations. I also invoke the gods of bit error rates and metastability and ask that they fail to provide positive spin on particular charmed quarks such that new hardware develoment efforts are stalled, and performance benchmarks show a suspicious intermittant failure to just meet product specifications during development. These ills and other related just barely unmanagable mayhem I curse the Apple corporation with, until such time as the little arrows are restored to their rightful place on the desktop. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Ahh, I feel much better now.

-R

Just upgraded to Mountain Lion after holding back from Lion over Office concerns. I often use/make/come across large webpages and scrolling line by line seems to have become near impossible. My eyesight is not very good and the sidebar on, eg Safari, is too small to easily click on. I have used a Logitach rollerball mouse for several years and they are streets ahead of any push around mouse for very precise control, and not very expensive.

Apple please respond ASAP

Lol, you make some good points. I'm a web developer and I can relate to being frustrated by Apple and their seeming attitude of "we know what's good for you" without ever actually paying attention to feedback from their users, or so it seems.

Courcoul wrote:

petermac87 wrote:

What are Scroll Arrows?

That reminds me of little kids asking "what are light bulbs?"

Why would a little kid say that? And what do light bulbs have to do with Scroll Bars being a thing of the past????

Cheers

Pete

Pete,

I think I understand the answer to this. Little kids spend a lot of time in the dark, playing video games, so don't get much exposure to lights, light bulbs, or LEDs. And another common thing about little kids, is that they don't do much coding work. Scroll bar arrows were really handy for lining up two versions of code in Xcode and determining what changed. Usually there is some little kid making changes in the code, such as removing scroll bar arrows... and some knowledgable experienced person has to go back in and fix the mess that was made.

-R

Thanks to kyleiam for the Option key workaround - this is a gold-dust workaround, it's practically the solution (apart from Apple putting them back or at least in the preferences)

Even if they mentioned the fact you can do this in the preferences, that would be something.