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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
@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.
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
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?
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.
actually, Objective C allows you to add new methods (or override existing ones) without access to the original source code. So you could compile the above code (well, override NSScrollView tile) into a .so and use the LD_PRELOAD variable to specify it be loaded. Thus,any Cocoa program would be modified. Carbon wouldn't be affected.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.Shut off the computer and learn to throw (or hit) a fastball
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)|
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
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.
Actually they are not 'right' and 'left', they are 'primary' and 'secondary'. However, they are commonly referred to as right and left - but that's typical in a right-hand dominated society.
Even Wikipedia avoids the sidedness distinction in an article about contextual menus and this one specifically about mice.
Don't make life more complicated than it has to be.
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.
(And you all thought I was going to drop a Bad Car Analogy on you.)
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