
“We would be willing to set up a $2,500 bounty to implement scrollbar styling” - scrollaway
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790
======
SwellJoe
I was reading through this, just laughing and laughing at how ridiculous it
was that people in 2001 thought changing the color of the scroll bar was
somehow important or useful. I was all, "Hahah, people were very silly in
2001, and the web was a very silly place."

Then, as the years crept ever forward, I began to realize this isn't a blast
from the past...it's not like a discussion about the blink tag. It's a real
thing that people still actually give a shit about 14 years later! My whole
perspective on the thread changed.

I'm just gonna say that I have never once, in my entire 20+ years of building
things on the web, wanted to change the color of the browser scroll bar. Until
I read this thread I wouldn't have even realized someone _would_ want to
change the scroll bar. It seems like such an odd thing to do, and I'm
imagining it looking silly, like something out of a 2001 page design (but
maybe it doesn't look silly when done well).

But, I'm not a designer. Maybe I just don't get it. Either way, I use Firefox,
and I do not care whether the scroll bar color can be changed.

Edit: I don't mean to insult folks who do think this is a useful feature. I'm
really just expressing my genuine surprise at the entire tone of the linked
thread. I don't oppose inclusion of this feature, and lots of people have
mentioned valid reasons why they want it. I will likely never truly understand
it, or share that desire, but I'm certainly not gonna get scrappy about it.
And, I probably wouldn't even notice, if it did become available in Firefox
tomorrow.

~~~
callmevlad
I'm the guy who offered the bounty, and for us (webflow.com) it's not about
styling scrollbars on ordinary websites - it's about making sure application
user interfaces are consistent across browsers.

Take a look at this comparison between Chrome and Firefox:
[https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn](https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn)

Webkit's ability to style scrollbars gives app developers a ton more control
over a user interface. Some advantages of Webkit over Firefox here:

* Custom styling without hacky JavaScript "fake scroll" scripts

* Control over the width of a scrollbar

* Better usability for certain use cases by enabling Up and Down buttons

* Scrollbars actually look like they belong inside the application

* Doesn't remind users that they're in a web browser

In my 15+ years of building websites, I never wanted to change the color of
the browser scroll bar either. But now I'm building a website that builds
websites, so it's a whole 'nother ball game :)

~~~
popnfreshspk
I question the necessity of having to make scroll bars consistent across
browsers.

Seeing as how most people only use one browser (data collected out of thin
air), wouldn't changing the native styling on a browser scrollbar be confusing
for people expecting the native styling?

~~~
callmevlad
Please take a look at the screenshot I posted:
[https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn](https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn)

Assuming you were using Firefox, what would you think about those two white
scrollbars that stick out like a sore thumb in a dark interface?

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
First off, that doesn't work without JS. I mean really: It's a couple of
screenshots.

Secondly, I prefer it. Far too many websites adjust things to the point where
it's impossible to actually see. (Case in point: link styling. To the point
where I have bookmarklets to remove styling from pages.)

I understand having the option to do so. But at the same time, I wouldn't use
said option. To me, readability > aesthetics. And far too many websites don't
respect that.

Please read JS;DR: [http://tantek.com/2015/069/t1/js-dr-javascript-required-
dead](http://tantek.com/2015/069/t1/js-dr-javascript-required-dead)

~~~
scrollaway
Er, what?

You need to start differenciating between "documents" and "applications". What
GP linked is a full-blown application. There's no "non-javascript" version of
it.

I have been watching comments here and it is absolutely infuriating how it's
very obviously _armchair designers_ with _zero experience in the field_ who
are yelling out "aesthetics don't matter, scrollbars should always look like
my system's scrollbars".

First of all, that is a ridiculous statement. On Linux for example there is no
"system scrollbars", the styling is up to the toolkit and it is different in
every single web browser out there. There's no consistency to be had across
applications.

Second of all, every other toolkit element can be styled. Buttons. Dropdown
menus. Text fields. Everything. They can all be styled not so your "documents"
will be less readable, but so that developers and designers are empowered to
create applications that look good, feel fluid, native, consistent.

They can be styled because applications can be more than just 20-input field
forms. Native applications have the power to style their scrollbars (and they
do so all the time), so web applications need it too to match such
capabilities. We're not talking about an unused feature here.

And to those complaining about scrolling behaviour, accessibility etc: Those
are the _exact reasons_ why we need scrollbar styling. Because when your
company is hounding you to have scrollbars that don't look out of place on a
major browser "and look, our competition does it", you're realistically not
just going to tell them "well, uh, readability is important". You're going to
use fake, pure-js scrollers and accessibility will suffer. _Everybody loses_.

This isn't about purple scrollbars for your text documents.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
From my perspective, at the very least, the link was a means of showing a
couple of screenshots.

Is it a full-blown application? Sure, I guess. But I could care less about
that.

The actual content is a couple of screenshots - not exactly something that
requires JS.

Also, I'm not speaking about designers at all. I am not a website designer,
and never claimed to be one.

I'm speaking as someone who uses a web browser. As I said earlier: To _me_ ,
readability > aesthetics. Especially as I'm often on-the-go. Things that look
better but are lower contrast are often unreadable when you've got any amount
of glare on the screen.

I use one web browser for the majority of my browsing. So yes, there is
consistency. I'm not talking about across applications, I'm talking about
within an application.

It may not be about purple scrollbars for your text documents, but that's what
it will largely end up being used for.

And yes, native applications have a greater power to style things. But there
is a distinction. Native applications inherently require greater trust. I'm
not going to install any random application that comes my way.

Also, there are applications I stay away from precisely because of that -
precisely because they have weird styling, and weird UIs. Case in point:
Github's desktop application. Great program - or would be if I could get over
the UI. But as is, I don't tend to use it.

That being said, it's a bit of a moot point regardless. It's just yet another
thing I'll add to the list of bookmarklets to disable things to make websites
readable. Along with many of the other things you mention as people being able
to style as features.

~~~
scrollaway
> It may not be about purple scrollbars for your text documents, but that's
> what it will largely end up being used for.

Taking away freedoms from developers should only ever be done for security
reasons. Not because you're scared they'll "misuse it and make ugly apps". Who
cares about "ugly apps"? They are weeded out over time by natural selection.

------
mynegation
To the naysayers: styling scrollbars has a very valid use-case. Two IDEs that
I use most at work are Visual Studio 2012 and JetBrains PyCharm. I always
switch to the dark theme on both, and try to use dark styling whenever
possible. Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be
overwhelming. Both IDEs style the scrollbars to conform to the dark theme. You
cannot do that in browser, unless you resort to emulating the scrollbar, like
e.g. CodeMirror did. Light grey scrollbars on otherwise dark screens are
immediately noticeable and distracting.

~~~
Swizec
> Simply because the amount of light from two 24" displays can be
> overwhelming.

Have you ever tried f.lux? Or maybe monitors with variable brightness?
(Apple's Thunderbolt displays have a light sensor and adjust automatically,
probably others as well)

~~~
mynegation
Thank you for recommendation, for whatever reason I did not know (forgot) that
f.lux works on Windows. f.lux changes color temperature, not brightness. I
tried changing overall brightness level with controls, but that unavoidably
reduces contrast which is just as bad.

------
whoopdedo
Scroll bars stand in an uncomfortable place with one foot on the WM side and
the other in the application. The user wants to be able to control the size,
scale, and position of the window without asking permission from the app. (And
who was the evil programmer who gave web sites the ability to disable zooming?
But I digress.) But an app that's at the mercy of the operating system for
drawing its scroll bars is going to lose usability if it wants to provide
infinite scrolling, or simulate a slide-show with vertical position. In those
cases it would be better to let the app control the appearance of the scroll
bars.

Which is to say, the regular window scroll bar that we're familiar with is
being overloaded for two different purposes: to interact with the app and to
interact with the WM. Perhaps we should have two scroll bars to avoid this
confusion?

------
jbeda
I remember when we first did this on IE5.5. It fell out naturally from some
improvements to the rendering system and a dev (forgot his name! Don?)
prototyped it to show off his new subsystem. It eventually got supported
because, at the time, we would do anything we could to differentiate.

Long time ago...

------
frozenport
Should we consider an anti-bounty system where we agree to pay more to the
foundation for not implementing a `feature`? I personally, don't like websites
breaking the 4th wall.

~~~
OmarIsmail
Websites already implement their own scroll bars - Gmail, Google Spreadsheets,
etc.

It would be nice if instead of having to reimplement _everything_ about the
scrollbar to just add a feature or two, the native one was customizable.
Because frankly, people are going to change it, so might as well make things
less buggy.

~~~
esrauch
Gmail uses webkit scrollbar styling, they don't reimplement scrollbars from
scratch. If you go to gmail in Firefox it uses the stock scrollbars, which is
really a major advantage to Firefox in my mind. It's kind of like when Chrome
stopped supporting the <blink> tag even though webkit still supported it.

Basically all of the times that I see this feature being used it is to make
tiny, mostly transparent, or auto-hiding scrollbars that don't match the
system UI at all and are a significant nuisance. I'm sure there are some sites
that are styling them reasonably, but it doesn't seem to be the norm, even for
the major players that have experienced design teams.

~~~
sukilot
Of course nowadays we see that tiny, mostly transparent, auto hiding
scrollbars are the system UI!

------
wodenokoto
Please link to the actual place on the page you are referring to. The
discussion spans 14 years.

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c188](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c188)

~~~
Aldo_MX
> The discussion spans 14 years.

And this is basically why I hate the obstinacy of Mozilla.

It is not difficult to find discussions that spans more than one decade, where
the official consensus is "web authors: get screwed, we would rather die than
to add X feature".

Yet, I will never understand why Mozilla decided to implement some -webkit-
prefixes to Firefox not that long ago, since their arguments can be reused in
any neverending bug report like this one.

I'm against the webkit/blink monoculture that many web authors wished we had,
but at this point I don't know what to expect.

One part of me applauds whenever a new website (ex. Mega or WhatsApp Web)
launches without support for Firefox at day one, because ignoring Firefox is
the way Mozilla will eventually stop their obstinacy.

But other part of me gets sad, because Firefox is the only feasible
alternative the web has against webkit/blink, and the web can't afford to have
a weak alternative against a monoculture.

I can only hope IE/Spartan to become a feasible alternative, because I can't
expect Mozilla to stop their obstinacy until they have no choice.

~~~
mmarx
> It is not difficult to find discussions that spans more than one decade,
> where the official consensus is "web authors: get screwed, we would rather
> die than to add X feature".

And yet, this doesn't appear to be the case here: > People, people. We already
know what the solution is to be -- binding XBL to pseudo-elements. There is no
point commenting here. We all know you want it. If you're not volunteering to
fix it, please don't comment at all.[0]

Rather, nobody seems to have stepped up to actually implement the feature for
the past decade, wich isn't all that surprising since implementing this seems
to be quite the effort:

> (1) this is a pretty involved bug; it would take weeks to months of work for
> a full-time engineer[1]

[0]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c125](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c125)
[1]
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c173](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77790#c173)

------
rappo
The bounty should be posted on Bountysource,
[https://www.bountysource.com/issues/10530078-style-the-
scrol...](https://www.bountysource.com/issues/10530078-style-the-scrollbar-
binding-moz-horizontal-scrollbar-to-xbl)

------
userbinator
It's worth noting that Firefox's scrollbars, at least on Windows, don't truly
behave exactly like the native ones either:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38467](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38467)

------
msie
If web apps are to be like native apps then this is something that has to be
done.

------
rasz_pl
random website on the internet controlling UI of my client application? where
do I _not_ sign up?

------
radley
I think the simple solution is adding a "light/dark" setting for browsers. We
certainly don't need every color of the rainbow (omg gross), but this simple
option could be universal and solve most requests.

~~~
callmevlad
Actually, that would not solve the issue that led me to offer the bounty.

Check out the difference between the scrollbars in Webflow rendered across
Webkit (Safari, Chrome, Opera) and Firefox:
[https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn](https://cloudup.com/c8K9RMqPeDn)

Note that not only does Webkit give you control over colors, it gives you
control over the width/height of the scrollbar - which for us is critically
important.

~~~
radley
I understand what you're asking for, but when available those settings are
usually set by the user, not the webpage.

Customization is a very, very slippery slope: can the web page only customize
the slider? What about the tab? Why not the entire frame of the browser? The
drop shadow of the window? Opacity? Alpha mask? Why just the sliders? Why not
just the tab? Ahhhh....

If the web page can change the style, can the user have a setting to override
it? If you make a custom style, will M$, Apple, iOS, or Android influence your
design in a particular direction (i.e. ends up looking like something ported
from iOS)? Or will you custom design for each system? Like, Blackberry? Or
just the popular systems?

BTW - I did HD Widgets for Android. Tons of customization. A lot of it was
barely used by our users. Sometimes I wish I had kept it much, much simpler.
App updates can be hell...

~~~
scrollaway
> Customization is a very, very slippery slope: can the web page only
> customize the slider?

I can't believe what I'm reading. Honest question: Have you ever used css?

The scrollbar is one of _extremely few_ elements living inside the browser
frame which cannot be styled.

The scrollbar on the outside of the page doesn't matter. What matters is all
the scrollbars that appear when you deal with iframes, scrolling divs etc.

For app builders, when scrollbar styling is not available, what do you think
they do? They don't give up, they just implement scrolling in js instead, and
accessibility/usability suffers.

