Sep 152011
 

Below is a screenshot from Socialite, Microsoft’s social app for Windows 8. Note the gray scrollbar roughly mid-screen.

skinny scrollbar

I have two problems with this scrollbar. One, it seems rather thin. This makes it a narrower, tougher target for direct use with a mouse click or drag. Of course, if you’re using a mouse with a scroll wheel that works great, regardless of mouse position. And the scrollbar may be irrelevant with touch.

scrollbar disappears

You may won’t see the second problem above: well, that is the problem – the scrollbar disappears after a very short time, even with the mouse pointer parked over it. That means one has to move the mouse just to redisplay the scrollbar. Very modern; very Android; very awkward. I’m looking forward to “touch first”, but I will also be using Win8 on a non-touch desktop. I don’t mind the scrollbar disappearing *when* I move away from it, but if I park the mouse pointer over the scrollbar, it should remain visible.

Of course, this is the Developers’ Preview, not even a beta, and this may not apply to the final version of Windows 8.

 Posted by at 2:16 pm