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Left Sided Windows Scrollbars?
Skin and Blister asks: "Years ago mouse manufacturers realized that not everyone is right handed and (thankfully) created the option of reversing the mouse buttons to accommodate left handed users. Now that laptops (and obviously tablets) have integrated touch technology, the new challenge for south paws is to use a stylus in the left hand to manipulate a scroll bar on the right side of an open window. Does anyone know if there is a way to move scroll bars to the left side of a window in Microsoft Windows XP Pro?"
Flip the screen upside down!
As a lefty, I experience these sorts of problems on a daily basis. Spiral notebooks are a pain, scissors are impossible, and I worry about my efficiency on my Nintendo DS. I lose a substancial number of Bells every day in Animal Crossing. Such a waste!
Those little things no righty ever thinks about. Heck, grab your favorite pencil or pen, hold it in your right hand, and read the markings on the pencil. If they're right side up, you've got yourself a right handed pen. Switch to the left side, and the letters are upside down! How disorienting.
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
Buy Nextstep...
Task Mangler
then create and use a TTF font that is "upside-down", and set your text direction as right-to-left.
!em rof skroW
but it's application-level for most things. Nothing you can do about it through Windows.
@interface NostalgicScrollView : NSScrollView
, NSMinY(contentFrame))];
{
}
@end
@implementation NostalgicScrollView
- (void)tile
{
[super tile];
id contentView = [self contentView];
id scroller = [self verticalScroller];
NSRect contentFrame = [contentView frame];
NSRect scrollerFrame = [scroller frame];
[scroller setFrameOrigin:NSMakePoint(0.0, NSMinY(scrollerFrame))];
[contentView setFrameOrigin:NSMakePoint(NSWidth(scrollerFrame)
}
@end
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Left-Handed Linux could get ~10% of the desktop market!
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Use GNUStep. They have Left-side scroll bars. and yes, it does run on Windbloz!
Most people would find such an interface difficult to use... particularly in countries where people read from left to right.
A left-sided scrollbar would require you to constantly drag the mouse back over the top of your working area, despite the fact the cursor is more likely to remain present on the right side of the screen when not being actively used for editing. This is also why you often see tool palettes placed on the left side of a working area, since you are likely going to be very near whatever in your work area required a tool change.
A similarly confusing configuration would be to have your application menus appear at the bottom of the screen and scrolling upward to select the option you need.
8==8 Bones 8==8
South paw means your foot. FYI.
NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP already do use left-sided scrollbars. This was probably a consequence of using DPS for window drawing, but there you have it.
It doesn't do anything about lefty-snubbing, but it seems a handy workaround...
The natural motion of a right hander is to slide to the left. If the scroll bar was on the left, it would be easier for a right handed person to slide on over and grab it. I do most of my scrolling using a wheel mouse now anyway.
God spoke to me.
Left-handedness is an issue with mice. Some are curved to fit the right hand, or have extra button layouts designed to be operated with the right hand. But I fail to see any connection between left-handedness and the aesthetic issue of which side the scrollbars are on. Your left hand is equally capable of moving the mouse left or right. The desire (vs. need) to have the scrollbars on the left is felt by enough people that the X Window Sytem provides this, but I think it unlikely Microsoft will ever go to the effort of making it an option in Windows.
Scroll Lock, then use arrows. As a lefty, I tried seeking software solutions, but just like meatspace, learning to work around things is easier than stocking up on left-handed crap. I use my mousewheel, and I dare say I hit home, end, pageup, pagedown more often than most right-handers. As for the left-handed mouse having the buttons switched, WTF is that about? I haven't found a game where my middle finger can't cope with the clicks yet, is that the supposed benefit of the switch?
First of all, he wasn't asking for a Cocoa solution. He wants something that works for Windows XP.
Second of all, this is basically useless for any existing Cocoa application, unless he or she has the source code available to them, and is willing to make the necessary changes. For most essential Cocoa tools, we do not have the source code readily available to us.
nope, maybe vista will (all fingers crossed), but IE7 have it under View - Encoding - Right to Left.
:)
I heard some third party tools will do it for you under win xp pro, but I had not yet bothered to look for them.
Maybe this is why my mom doesn't find computers easy to use, I haven't thought of that possibility.
I'll jump on the bandwagon of people that ignore the fact that you specifically state that you're using WinXP Pro and suggest that you switch to a different OS. Scroll bars are on the left in every Plan 9 program I can think of. This is also true in those programs' ports to other OSes (such as wily, the acme clone for Unix). For that matter, most X11 terminal emulators put the scroll bars on the left, and so do some other old X programs...
"Does anyone know if there is a way to move scroll bars to the left side of a window in Microsoft Windows XP Pro?""
Learn Arabic.
As another lefty, I know what you mean. Nintendo's Brain Age, which is centered around entering data via the touchscreen while reading text on the other screen, does exactly what you suggest -- it flips the screen upside down if you tell it you're left handed. Unfortunately, most DS titles do not offer this feature.
Maybe working with a stylus isn't for you. I know I've never used one. Hell, I almost never use the scroll bar itself. Instead I use either Page Up/Down, the up/down arrow keys, or a mouse with a scroll wheel. I've seen laptops that come with a similar lever button between the left and right mouse buttons.
My mouse cursor stays wherever I left it for most programs and is separate from the typing cursor. Menus are often at the top or left. Again, I move the mouse across the screen to reach these if I'm using the mouse cursor to move the scrollbar on the right. (Gotta love scroll wheels) KDE and Windows (default settings) have their main menu appear at the bottom and you scroll upwards to choose. I've actually found moving the taskbar,etc. to the top of the screen beneficial. This is not due to the menu being confusing rather it reduces mouse movement.
turn monitor upside down
seriously, im left handed and ive had to adjust to the right handed world in more than just computing
pretty much everything in the world is made for the right handed
like cars, jice pitchers , toilet paper dispendsers and door knobs
back in the day we didnt have no old school
If you are using a Right-To-Left language, Windows will reverse most of this stuff for you.
Of course, this includes menus, windows... everything mirrored.
It's all or nothing.
On Windows, if you are using a Right-to-left language (such as Hebrew) the scroll bar appears on the left side. It should be possible to customize any locale to put the scroll bar on the left. You'll probably have to resource hack your locale file.
http://brandonbloom.name
I read left-to-right, and my second finger sits on the mouse's middle scroll-wheel/button (so I can roll it up or down). It all just works.
:-) for choosing sides. Alternatively, just watch to see which buttons get clicked when a user logs in.
WRT handedness-sensitive PDAs, hain't knowingly seen one yet.
Handing a mouse is easy, just ask for some weird combination (Ctrl-Alt-Button for example, and wait for the cursing from 'Doze users
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
- The menus of all apps are on the top left, the furthest away from the scrollbar - just like righties have to use;
- The start menu for Windows/Linux distros that I've used are on the bottom left, the furthest away from the scrollbar - just like righties have to use
- The menus of most web sites are on the left, the furthest away from the scrollbar - just like righties have to use;
- I could go on, but everybody gets my point...
If you find compy interfaces tough to use, it's not because you're a leftie, it's because these interface wrinkles haven't been ironed out yet for righties OR lefties.I'm seriously left sided, not just kinda like a lot of people who claim to be left handed. I eat, write, kick, see, hear, chew, mastur..., well, pretty much everything with the left side of my body. However, growing up in a world where the norm was to use a right handed mouse and have scroll bars on the right side, I have just learned to deal with it. I have tried using my left hand for "right handed mice" as well as neutral handed mice, and it just feels different using my left hand to mouse around. And I think that if I were to switch the scroll bars on my computer somehow to be on the left side, it would just make things that much more confusing since I use other computers for school and whatnot. I do, however, have a laptop with a touchpad and a nice little dedicated scroll touch part on the right side that I find extremely useful, much like a scroll wheel. However, THAT is on the right side and has kind of forced me to use the touch pad with my right hand as well, although I do find myself using the left hand once in a while. My advice, just deal with it and then tell all your righty friends that they are conformists for being right handed, and can't deal with all the extra stuff that we lefties go through on a daily basis. P.S. If you ever sprain or break your dominant wrist, it makes wiping your ass really awkward, but the "sex" is new and fun! hehe...
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
If we're going to worry about which side scrollbars should be, we should also worry about minimize, maximize and close bottons. True, you can already do that with the single button on the upper left side of any application, but for consistency's sake, it should be, well, consistent.
but I mouse with the right hand. I once developed a pinched nerve where I couldn't use my right arm, so I bought a new mouse (Microsoft Intellimouse Optical USB) which was a "Universal" mouse and set the buttons for left handed use. I can use a right handed mouse with my left hand, but it gets very uncomfortable after a few minutes. So then I started to use my PC with my left hand and mouse and it took 3 days to train my brain to accustom my left hand to left handed mice button pressing. I found no difference in using the OS for I was already accustomed to using the scroll wheel for scrolling and using the keyboard shortcuts with my hand. Only difference was using my right hand to do a lot of the key pressing, but I already do that when I use a right handed mouse. On the occasion I did use the scroll bar, I did wish it was on the left side at times, but I found that if I give myself proper space and use a faster mouse pointer, it became less of an issue. Interesting thing too, while I was accustomed to the left mouse, my right hand was also left oriented.
However, when I went home to use my PC, I did find some annoyances. My deskspace was set up for right handed use, so rearranging my desk space was a bit of a hassle. Gaming left handed in FPS games was a bit of a challenge since my left hand was used to the WASD keyboard config. I had to train my right hand to use the left side of the keyboard. It would have been better to remap the keys on the keyboard for my right hand, but my condition was temporary. It didn't take too long to adapt. My house mates also complained of my left mouse too.
Once my pinched nerve was cured (via wearing a neck brace) I went back to the old way of using the right handed mouse. It took 3 days to reprogram my brain, that is get used to the right mouse button setup, and after that I was good again. My left hand, also reverted to right handed usage, forgetting how to use the left mouse button setup.
Shut off the computer and learn to throw (or hit) a fastball
you could look at it in a mirror :-D A touch sensitive USB mirror? I dunno lol.
As a programmer though, I can tell you there's at least 5 ways to do it. One would be to run a shell replacement program. Two is to hack the default windows shell yourself. Three is to try and find a shell or display related registry entry that changes when you switch to a right to left language and change them when you change back to english. Four is that in theory, you could write a program that puts a scrollbar on the left of every window so there would be one on both sides (Nvidia did that sort of thing to the top bars of windows) And five is that there's probably a windows API to change it so get programming, lol. Oh yeah, or just use the page up and down keys and arrow keys or the mouse wheel (get a clicky mouse wheel so you can 4 diretion scroll)
now stop reading and go play Dance Dance Revolution!
Why not just use your right hand to hold the stylus? Sure it would take practice, but if I had to reach across what I was looking at to scroll I'd learn to use my left hand. It can't be that hard.
in XP
:)
Ctl+Alt+down arrow
Voila ! scroll bars on the left
Let's say you write something down on paper with your left hand. Then the main problem is that your arm is in the way when writing left to right. So left handed people often have their hands all curled up just so they can see what they're writing.
But with a mouse, there's no arm in the way to hide what's on the screen. So what's the practical advantage of putting a scrollbar on the other side?
For most people, that is those not otherwise impared, we have the ability to use both hands for a variety of functions. I use both hands to type... most people do. When I drive, one hand is on the wheel, usually the left. (my current car is automatic, but I learned on manual.) I learned to play guitar... a little. But the fact is, each hand has a function.
I am "right handed" though.
Can I use a mouse left-handed? Yeah... I do that on occasion at work when using more than one computer simultaneously. I don't think it's beyond the capability of most "lefties" out there to adapt and use their hands by function rather than clinging to their weaknesses. (And by weakness, I mean tendency to favor one hand over the other.) I'm nobody special. I'm not gifted or exceptional in any way that I know of.
Either I'm wrong and I do posess extraordinary ability in that I can mouse with either left or right hands, fret my guitar and drive with my left hand, or the "lefties" out there who cannot adapt and learn, have retarded ability because they cannot adapt and learn to use both hands for various functions. So which is it? Are lefties retarded? Or am I just gifted and tallented? I can't see how it can be both or neither really.
Scrollbar widgets are mostly hardcoded and cannot be moved. The issue is that most text or html widgets have their scroll bars always on the bottom or on the right. So, for Windows, you just have to harass Microsoft so that they add the functionality and break the API, until they code it from scratch again. Nice isn't it? For other platforms, it should be possible to post some kind of bug report, or new functionality suggestion.
I heavily suspect that such a change would break many apps...
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
Has anyone thought of Ned Flanders' Leftorium? You have to able to find a left-handed WinXP there!
I am strongly left-handed but when I was introduced to this new-fangled mouse thingy, I always moused with my right hand, probably because that was how my desk was laid out at first, and was not very comfortable mousing with the left. Unfortunately, after a few years of intensive Doom-playing (LH on keyboard, RH on mouse), I got a touch of RSI in my right writst which meant that mousing right-handed became painful and I now mouse exclusively with my left hand. (I only switch over when playing a FPS.)
Anyway, to the point in hand: I'm well aware of and irritated by the "dextrism" that pervades manufacures goods (numeric keypad on the right is my pet peeve) but honestly I had never given the position of the scroll bar a second thought until I read this article. It's just a waste of effort to have to acquire a left-handed version of every common product, and if you've got to the point where you're complaining about where the scroll bar is then you're just overdoing it. I mean, mouse pointer too far from the scroll bar? Give it a nudge and - look! - it's over there, near the scroll bar! Problem solved! Or use the wheel and forget about it. It's not even clear that this is a case of dextrism - the scroll bar has to be somewhere; this is more likely to be influenced by text reading direction than the majority dominant hand.
You have to be able to adapt to the environment you find yourself in. Putting up with default computing environments makes you more comfortable when using random machines and makes your machine a *lot* easier to use should anyone need to do something quickly on it over your shoulder. I've got a left-handed colleague who swaps his mouse buttons and I have to help him with stuff on his computer from time to time. Just can't adapt to it, no matter how many times I use it.
pi = 2*|arg(God)|
I recently picked up a bottle of washing up liquid which was right handed. Really, they'd actually gone to the bother of designing the bottle so it fits the right hand neatly and comfortably making it less comfortable for the left hand. Of course that means that the 10% of the population out there who are lefties have deliberately been ignored by the bottle designer, manufacturer and the washing liquid marketing department.
i quid.jpg
e.g.
http://www.geofftech.co.uk/50pence/photos/fairy_l
Deleted
When your Windows locale is for a right-to-left language, the scroll bars, menus and everything is reversed and on the opposite side too. This works in pretty much all applications.
So, Windows does support it. The question is, how do you enable it in an English left-to-right OS?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The scrollbar sucks and needs to go, i especially like the suggestion that the wheel button should transfer scrolling to the mouse movement, like the draggy-hand control you get in most apps (e.g. adobe acrobat reader)
You could always vote for this bug
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Bookmark the parent so you can use it as prior art when the new type of mice hit the shelves with pat.pend. written all over them.
just like normal people mice these days all have a scroll wheel in the middle use that instead. if on a laptop just use the arrow keys to scroll up and down theres no heartache.
where can I buy a stylus with a scroll wheel?
Meanwhile: Scroll wheels are often slower than just clicking where you want to go. For short documents the time it takes to move to the scroll bar is enough that using the scroll wheel would be faster, but if you're expected to be holding a stylus that generally isnt the case (most people can point to something specific faster using a stylus than a mouse). This guy's problem is that he takes 5d6 holy damage whenever his arms briefly cross.
Am I the only one who wants my dominant, faster, more nimble, hand on the thing with lots of tiny buttons instead of the thing that can be used easily by someone whose arms terminate at club-like stumps?
"Left handed" mouse settings are completely stupid.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'm right handed, but like many had to switch mouse hands due to shoulder pains. It only took a week to lose the "hadicapped" feeling, and couple more to feel fluent in all but the most exacting tasks (i.e. 3D modeling etc. where a pixel or two counts took manybe 2 months).
I found it very helpful to switch mouse buttons at the same time. Feels much more similar to use the "same finger" than the same button. YMMV.
sudo ergo sum
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Okay, so exactly why do left-handed people reverse their mouse buttons?
They're the left and right buttons. Software responds to a left button click, not to "a click of the button that happens to be under your index finger". I use a mouse with either hand - without swapping buttons - and manage to click the button on the left side of the mouse without any confusion.
I can understand that some mice have an awkward shape, which is annoying to hold in the left hand. But who added the option to reverse the buttons, and why?
I imagine you could write a resident program in VB.net to either move the scroll to the left or add another scroll to the left.. I've never really thought of it.. maybe I'll try it for fun... It can't be that hard.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit!
What's the problem? Just write in them starting from the back. It'll be backwards for us righties, but then, so is your writing style ;)
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I've had a Watcom Graphire since 1999 or so where the stylus has two buttons(more of a rocker really) on the side that are completely configurable. I think the common setup had down as a click and up as a click+drag for scrolling, but they can probably be setup to scroll up and down.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I dunno, I'm righthanded and I can use the mouse fairly well with both hands. Nowadays for most desktop work I use my left hand for mouse, and for games I might use the right hand.
I think most people can learn to use either hand to do stuff. It's just not worth the trouble for most.
Most people's brains are asymmetric and tend to specialize, so even though a person is apparently right handed and they use the right hand exclusively for writing, they may still prefer to use their left hand for rubbing/scratching their noses or combing their hair.
Since it's likely that our left and right sides aren't exactly the same, just because you learn to do something with one hand doesn't automatically mean you can do it as well with the other. So given that most people never ever need to be ambidextrous, they just stay specialized and don't train their brains to be ambidextrous.
Many of us use both hands to type, doesn't matter which handedness we are. Left hand is specialized to left bit of the keyboard and right to the right side. I think very very few of us can use a "flipped" left-to-right keyboard and automatically be able to type as well as before...
And whether you're right handed or not doesn't necessarily indicate which foot you use the brake pedal with. For automatic cars you can get away with using the left foot for brake exclusively. But for manual cars, you might use the right (leaving the left free for clutch), and I hear some people actually use either depending on the situation!
A quick google search finds:
s tID=98910&SiteID=1
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?Po
So, at least in Vista, the answer will be no.
This is a snap to do programmatically for Windows programs, pretty much regardless of how you write them. If you write a Windows pogram using System.Windows.Forms (i.e. the .NET framework), just set the RightToLeft property to true, and whenever a scrollbar that would automatically appear appears, it appears on the left side. Ditto MFC programs -- just set the "Layout RTL" property to true.
I never learned enough about the Win32 API to know whether a window class has a similar property, but I suspect it does.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Probably the biggest issue I've had with being left handed are those fill in the blank tests where the blanks are to the right of the question. When a lefty such as myself goes to fill in the blank, the question is covered by my arm and hand. This makes it easy to loose focus and fill in an answer for another question. It's also impossible to put your pencil on the answer that you believe to be right and then re-read the question without moving your pencil.
Another issue I have is touchpads. It's hard for a left-handed user to reach accross the pad and use the verticle scroll on the right side.
A lot of people will and have suggested learning ambdexterity at least, or right handedness in the extreme. Well I say that's crap. Cut off your hand. That's right, cut that lefty bitch off. You'll never have to hear or make complaints about left and right handedness again. In fact, most people will be too PC to mention hands at all and you'll be left (pardon the pun) with no other options.
Here are the instructions for that.
Why do that when you could have a nice stable GNU/Linux installed in twenty minutes? Does anyone really go through all of that torture just to customize a Windoze box? Why does Slashdot have these mindless "I want to do something that's easy with free software but freaking impossible in Windoze XP" stories?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Buy your winders from Ned Flander's store. The Leftorium
Isnt it true, that Lefties are cursed by God? or that they have some sort of degenerating disease?
Check it Out http://aarondavidson.com
Because the time to make each single modification to an existing Windows installation is cheaper than the money to re-buy peripherals whose manufacturer doesn't care for Linux.
As a lefty I have found that mousing with my right leaves my left hand free to write so taking notes while doing online research easy. My wife similarly writes with her right hand and therefore mouses left.
BTW for you some of you slashdotters, writing is a ancient art of putting information down on paper using your OWN HAND, CTL + P will often producwe a similar result, but uses a bit more paper. I find it a useful skill to remember my passwords, it works great on the sticky notes I put on my monitor.
the macbook scrolls by having two fingers on the mouse pad and moving them down, and right click by having two fingers on the pad then clicking. parallels and boot camp work great for running windows.
honestly I don't care if it's on the left side or right side (I'm right-handed for the record). But the preference is that it shows up out of the center of the screen... If the window is left justified to the screen, I'd rather the scrollbar on the left side.
But since windows get moved around, and it's more annoying to see it swap sides, I don't care if it's on the right or left of the window.
let's put together a running list of how many people will continue to comment on how:
- mouse pointer position changes anyway, so scrollbar position doesn't matter
- left-handed people are whiner's who can't adapt
- non-ambidextrous people are whiner's who can't adapt
- scrollbars suck anyway
- it doesn't matter to them because they're awesomely ambidextrous
- windows sucks anyway
- scissors suck/don't suck
read the f**in post people, and *imagine* using a stylus in your left hand, on a tablet pc without keyboard or mouse (it's a tablet pc: you should be able to use it as a pure tablet) - if you'd want to scroll down, you'd have to cover the screen with your hand because the scroll bar is on the other side.
sure you could switch the stylus to the other hand, but then you'd have to switch again to write.
just answer the question - do you know of any windows utility that allows you to switch the scrollbar to the other side
as for the adapt-and-stop-complaining-camp: if we all had to adapt to user interfaces, we'd still be flipping switches, reading tape, and watching lights
let's put together a running list of how many people will continue to comment on how:
- mouse pointer position changes anyway, so scrollbar position doesn't matter
- left-handed people are whiner's who can't adapt
- non-ambidextrous people are whiner's who can't adapt
- scrollbars suck anyway
- it doesn't matter to them because they're awesomely ambidextrous
- windows sucks anyway
- scissors suck/don't suck
read the f**in post people, and *imagine* using a stylus in your left hand, on a tablet pc without keyboard or mouse (it's a tablet pc: you should be able to use it as a pure tablet) - if you'd want to scroll down, you'd have to cover the screen with your hand because the scroll bar is on the other side.
sure you could switch the stylus to the other hand, but then you'd have to switch again to write.
just answer the question - do you know of any windows utility that allows you to switch the scrollbar to the other side
as for the adapt-and-stop-complaining-camp: if we all had to adapt to user interfaces, we'd still be flipping switches, reading tape, and watching lights
Just as there are activists for equal rights of minorities, there should be activists for equal rights for left-handed people.
These activists would operate in the same manner as those for minorities. For example, there are activists for that minority of this country's population that does not believe in God. They go around starting legal battles with courthouses that display the Ten Commandments to symbolize moral service under a higher authority, counties that display a cross on their seal to symbolize the county's roots in a mission, etc. In other words, because just one person doesn't agree with there being a cross on something, everybody must change their ways to accomodate that one person. That is what these activists do. They twist the words of the Constitution out of context and insert nonexistent language. The language "separation of church and state" does NOT exist in the Constitution. What exists there is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This language was designed to mean that anyone can practice whatever religion they want without the fear of persecution. But this is somehow taken to mean that even the slightest insinuation of religion is illegal in public. In other words, it means that if you're religious, you're persecuted. A cross on a seal is not a law respecting an establishment of religion. It is a symbol of the history of the place. God forbid if we actually teach that religion played a role in the development of what is now a metropolis. Next thing you know, churches will operate in secret, underground, and the KGB will chase down anyone who believes in God. And that is what equal rights mean. That one person's rights supercede the rights of everybody else, because God forbid, we can't have someone getting offended, even if it's by something that we've all been doing for thousands of years and that the offended person could easily ignore.
The activists for equal rights for left-handed people would operate in the same manner. They would get laws passed that force everything to be made exclusively for left-handed people, with no version to accomodate right-handed people, even though right-handed people make up most of the population. This includes the design of mice, the placement of scrollbars, the design of furniture such as school desks, and all other things.
Those very same "mouse manufacturers" have seen fit to give us the scroll wheel, making scrollbars much less important.
No sig today...
i write left-handed but do nearly everything else, including using the mouse (except for fps), with my right hand. i'd have to agree that it really isn't hard to learn to use either hand. and i really don't see left sided scroll bars as an improvement. i mean who uses the scroll bar anyway? just get a symmetrically shaped mouse with scroll wheel!
This is about PDA's and and TAblet PCs that need to be operated with a pen. I have one experience with this:
When I was looking for a PDA in 2000, I looked at my friends Palm V, which where the scrollbars could be flipped to the left, and the pen holder on the right was identical to the holder of the flipcover on the left, so they could be interchanged.
But the Palm was only 32Mhz, back&white, while the new PocketPCs were fast enough to run mp3, have CF readers and 16bit color displays.
So I bought a PocketPC (Cassiopeia E125).
I can tell you these are VERY awkward to use for lefthanded people. You are constantly moving your hand in front of the screen, the pen holder is on the wrong side, all buttons are on the left side, INCLUDING the scroll wheel, which I _can't_ use, because I'm holding a pen with my left hand.
I have only used my (very expensive) PocketPC for a few months, then I didn't use a PDA for years, but since some time I am now using a Nokia smart phone, and realy liking it. I heard that the newest model PocketPCs have become somewhat better, as the one I had 6 years ago, but I'll never buy another one.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Hi Guys. Here's a quick update/hint on my posted question: IT'S ABOUT USING A STYLUS ON A TOUCHSCREEN. It's *not* about using scissors, driving a car, dealing with spiral notebooks, using a fork, USING A MOUSE, using a PC, or learning to be ambidexterous for enhanced sexual gratification. (Which, BTW, I can do all of those things with either hand). Rather, it's about the practicality and good user interface needed for a left handed person trying to use a stylus on a touch screen tablet (NO KEYBOARD OR MOUSE available), to move scroll bars on the right hand side. If I do this, it blocks the text in the window and isn't easy to use. For those who say "deal" or "use the other hand", please first go out and learn to write legibly inside the small squares on standard quad paper with your non-dominant hand before you actually suggest it. I have been trying to "deal" for a year, and have never before been unable to adapt to using my right hand for a specific task. For whatever crazy reason, I had (erronously) believed that a savvy bunch like /.-ers would actually have a neat bit of software or setting change to suggest. Apparently when faced with the prospect of having to admit that "I don't know" is the most accurate answer, the majority of you revert to calling me a whiner, offer unrealistic suggestions like cutting off my hand, or revert to plain old sarcasm. These are generally not helpful. The upshot is, most of your "suggestions" are good for a laugh (and keep you from admitting there's a question you can't answer). :P For the folks who actually responded in honesty or offered software/setting suggestions -- THANK YOU! For everyone else, *lol*.
I'm left-handed, but mouse with my right and always have. I guess it seemed at the time that it was more trouble to move the mouse than it was worth. Fast forward twelve years, and I play all sorts of games, can hold my own in most FPS games, all while mousing right-handed. The thing that gets me, though, despite the ease at which I can do everything else on the computer, is that I can't for the life of me do anything worthwhile in Photoshop or any other graphics program for that matter. That's the only time my left-hand dominance comes through.
Stop whining about little things like mice and scrollbars and scissors.
The simple fact is, if you're a leftie, you're much more likely to be f*cked up in other ways ...
Geez ... no wonder parents used to try to get their left-handed kids to switch hands - who wants all these problems?
It's hard to use a scroll mouse when you're using a tablet in the field. Part of the whole point of having a stylus is to not use a mouse.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
For most people, the side which feels best is the side they are used to. But in principle, for those people who write from left to right, the natural position of a scroll bar is the left. When users try to orient themself on a page, or, gloss over a page quickly they look to the left; all new paragraphs in english start on the left side. (At least I have a hard time grasping a topic by only reading the right part of text.) When scrolling I am glossing only because I'm mostly scrolling when searching something. If the scroll bar is close to the side where I'm looking, the control is much smoother. I also like to move windows of secondary interset partially off the screen. I prefer doing that to the right side so I can read the beginings of paragraphs. It is painful to move the window back in completely, each time I want to scroll. I cannot imagine who invented scrollbars on the right; at PARC they were to the left.
Ok, so I'm exaggerating slightly; obviously I know such a thing exists, and that it's on the right hand side. But I never actually use it for anything - all my scrolling needs use, in the case of a traditional mouse, the scroll button in the middle, or in the case of my laptop, the right hand side of my trackpad.
Incidentally, I'm a lefty, but I've never, ever had any complaints about the handedness of mouses or any other similar ui interface. I keep complaints about handedness for things that really matter, like scissors.
I'm a left hander, and I use the world with my left hand. That means ink pens, jam jars, scissors, screwdrivers, bottle openers, mice, cars, etc.
I went to a leftorium the other day, and couldn't use half the stuff in there, because I was used to dealing with right handed stuff, and I don't suffer from acopia.
I don't consider having scroll bars on the left hand side would make my life easier -- nor that it would involve fewer mouse miles.
Get a scroll wheel. You people make me ashamed to be sinister!
Sorry, but this really irks me.
Replacing the entire operating system just for one little quality-of-life feature is like replacing your entire house just for the new garage door opener.
Running Windoze is like living in an unfinished mansion in a war zone. It looks roomy and fancy on the outside, but you will spend all of your time cramped into the poorly built basement bomb shelter.
That's how I feel when I'm squeezed into that ugly, single screen monstrosity. There are so many utilities and tools missing that I don't see why anyone bothers to add them. To use your analogy, if there is a single thing Windoze does, it's users then waste all of their time building something comfortable around that snazzy garage door opener.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...and get on with your life, dammit
But a total shot in the dark: Google assistive technology, and see if you can find a site that may have something that will be of use to you. Hey, I am serious--friend of mine is hemiplegic--paralyzed on 1 side--and has a really sweet computer set up.
Well yes, by the logic of my post they're stupid because they make sense for right-handers, not left-handers.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I think it defaults to middle-click, which in IE means "scroll to where I move the mouse", which is redundant when it's always faster (and more precise) to click the scrollbar. I've also had an Intuous with that button. Strangely, the side buttons are not completely configurable (in windows), and the secondary one can only be bound to a very limited set of features. I usually bound them to forward/back in web browsers, though.
:)
so, I'm Also left-handed and scrolling with a stylus, just to qualify my original post
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Pick up a http://www.sharpie.com/ (R) In your right hand the text is right side up. In your left hand the text is right side up. As a fellow south paw, I don't know what your yammering on about!
Run Cygwin and enjoy the annoying-to-me default left sided scroll-bar.
Then maximise the window and use vi. You'll be a happier person for it.