About the little scrollbar arrows...

What were scroll bar arrows?

Pete

Phil, I think this began with Gripplz talking about two finger scrolling with a trackpad and pointing out that you could scroll horizontally as well as vertically and that it worked better - more incrementally - than the little scroll bar. I didn't think I could do that until I realized I had to turn the natural scrolling thing on. Two things I need the scroll arrows for are editing audio and editing written documents. The two finger/trackpad method will scroll horizontally with Garage Band but I haven't tried it with Pro-tools, which I also use, because I have that on my i-mac which still has Snow Leopard. I find the two finger method also scrolls more smoothly and comfortably through written documents than trying to use the scroll bar. And it will stop at the place I want instead of jumping from page to page. I definitely don't think this will solve all the problems related to the loss of the scroll arrows however, even for people who do have a track pad. Re-reading your email I see you mention using a mouse. I'm just using the trackpad, no mouse, on the laptop.

Apple, please, please, restore the scroll bar arrows! Or at least make it a tunable choice... This lack alone just makes me want to leave the Mac.

I did not buy a computer to have the same ergonomy as with an iPad. This whole IOS-Mac OS X convergence is ill-thought.

Bischof I agree with you. In a headlong persuit of maintaining Apple' success I suspect that the needs of the professional Mac user are likely to be left by the wayside. It would be nice if I'm wrong, but you cannot condemn the persuit of commercial achievement.

Apologies if this has already been posted but a way to get scroll arrows without reverting to SL is to install it in VirtualBox on top of Lion. This is working for me and its free.

Pete

can you expand upon:

"a way to get scroll arrows without reverting to SL is to install it in VirtualBox on top of Lion"?

Thanks

OK Sam

Here is a link to an article that explains what I have done

http://http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/17/install-run-mac-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard-in- virtual-machine-on-lion/

My experiences so far.

Firstly I have used VirtualBox for a couple of years running Windows VM's (virtual machines) for web developement testing. This has prooved very useful and the software is well thought out and reliable and there is good documentation.

I now have Snow Leopard running as a VM as well. This means I can jump between Lion and SL without having to reboot. Also with file sharing you can move stuff between machines easily.

What this means is If I want to work on a 2000 line document I can do it with scroll arrows and nice big easy to use scroll bars.

Also its a way of running any old Rossetta apps if you still need them.

The other advantage of this is when Apple release a new software upgrade you can try this out in a VM first.

If only I had thought of that before upgrading to Lion.

Drawbacks

1. You need a fair bit of memory. Although VBox recommends 1GB allocated to SL it works better with 2GB I am using a 20 inch Imac with 4GB and in practical terms I think this is probably the minimum.(of course you are only using this when your VM is running)

Also this does use disc space (20 GB for SL plus Vbox itself).

2. The maximum screen resolution supported for Mac OS X is 1440x900 so the Virtual box full screen feature will not on a larger screen. Actually for me this isn't really a drawback as its easier to move between machines and 1440x900 nearly fills a 20inch screen.

3. I find the mouse pointer sticks in the VM sometimes if you have the mouse integration feature turned on. If its turned off you have to press the LH option key to release the pointer from the VM.

A Few Tips

Follow the Instructions very carefully and make sure you reformat the VDI in the SL intaller process using the Utilities menu

When you set up SL as a VM I found the following settings worked for me after 3 attempts. so this is not a quick process it took me half a day.

1. Select Mac OS Server (64bit). you can probably also use the other setting just Mac OS Server

2. Select a Fixed size VDI 20GB this is important and is not in the article instructions a dynamic VDI will not work for SL

3 It actually took about an hour to install.

Hope this helps

Further to my previous post two more things

1. You also need to install the Virtualbox extension pack from their downloads page.

2. Once you have your SL VM up and running when you shut it down if you save the machine state instead of powering down it is much quicker to restart it.

3. Take snapshots of your VM they are like back ups so you can revert to a previous machine state.

To the OP (Gulldo):

There is sort-of a workaround behavior for line-at-a-time scrolling in Lion. It involves using the keyboard so it's not nearly as convenient as pre-Lion.

1) Find yourself a page with lots to scroll. This web page will probably do the trick.

2) Hold down the Option key on the keyboard (this is the ugly part) and keep it held down

3) Using the mouse, click directly on the scroll bar thumb (that little gray lozenge/pill shape in the middle of the scroll bar) and start dragging. You must click directly on the thumb before you start dragging or else the document will scroll directly to the location you've clicked.

4) Drag up and down. You'll notice you essentially get the equivalent of the old scroll arrows. In Terminal even when there's a huge amount of text in the scroll buffer, it's still possible to scroll up and down a single line at a time using this method.

5) Be sure to let go of the mouse button BEFORE releasing the Option key or you will end up scrolling the document.

This seems to work in all Lion applications, but the exact behavior depends on the application much like the exact behavior of the up and down scroll arrows depended on the application pre-Lion.

My usability rating for this workaround: It *****, but it's better than nothing at all.

Dear Apple:

The lack of scroll arrows really *****. Yes, I have an iPhone. No, an Iphone doesn't have scroll arrows. So what? The iPhone doesn't ahve arrows for moving the cursor around so I can delete the (wrong) first letter of a word. Does that mean you'll be getting rid of arrow support in the Mac OS as well?

At my desk, I have a trackball with scroll wheel, so it's only a minor issue. But when I don't have that. I want the scroll arrows.

You are welcome to INVITE us to use new features. DEMANDING that we use new features, by getting rid of the old one that worked perfectly fine, is a Microsoft style move. Please give us back our scroll arrows. The lack of them degrades the OS.

Mac 101

After 19 years as a live Mac commercial I have now started to advice my students not to buy a Mac. And if they have one, I recommend that they do not install Lion. The reason is that I have now tried more systematically to work with an important audio application on Lion. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, navigating by milliseconds in a huge audio file is too inaccurate without the scrollbar arrows. The workarounds simply aren't as good as the arrows. My experience by now, having tried to do actual work on Lion, is that it is not only too inaccurate, it is also very time-consuming. As I am about to prepare a class on the use of that audio tool, I have concluded that "no longer recommend Macs" should be upgraded to "advice against Macs".

I can of course understand that not everyone needs such presicion, though this thread testifies that a lot of us do. I have an iPad, and I would never dream of such presicion there, but then I wouldn't use it for such work either. I can probably learn to live with monochrome GUI (hey, I used a monochrome GUI in the eighties), auto-quitting applications, poor graphic cues about a file's changed-but-unsaved-status, and the unability to decide on my own when to save and when not to save. But when I am not able to use a Mac for quite simple workflows, we are approaching some kind of boundary. I love my iPad, but I also need a computer.

You said it.

Me too.

JewelChick01 wrote:

Me too.

Yes they would be nice, but alas they have gone.

Pete

The folks at XEROX PARC invented scroll bar arrows. These have been on EVERY MAC GUI from the beginning of the MAC until OSX Lion. I didn't need them until TODAY and TODAY I really need them.

I'm pretty upset that some Apple engineers and marketing people eliminated a GUI feature that has been a part of the MAC GUI since the beginning. What were they thinking? I NEED the ability to mouse one line at a time!

Don't take this abiltiy away from me just because you want to be compatable with a touch screen UGH.

I'm extremely disappointed with Apple on this one. I'm thinking of dumping all my i"insert name here" products and embracing Windows. Of course perhaps they too have hosed up their wonderful OS with touch GUI changes.

<sigh>

Signed

- Defeated and frustrated Apple user.