RE: Scrollbar CSS representation [Re: Proposal]

James Aylard said:

>     Whether scrollbars are part of the document interface or 
> the application
> interface is debatable. I can "turn off" scrollbars by 
> tinkering with an
> element's overflow property (including that of the document 
> as a whole); or
> I can create them, on a div, for instance. It seems that it's 
> a little late
> to declare scrollbars outside the sphere of CSS's influence.

I tend to agree.  Although, I know that this is  quite the controversial
topic not only on this list, but throughout the web community.  I am
fascinated by the debate and the reasoning  behind the opinions.

IMHO, if style for scroll bars is to be, it should be allowed only for the
general colour of the scrollbar itself, and the designer should keep in mind
that it should be only a hint since not all OS's (esp. ones with a small
footprint) would allow such a modification of UI elements.

UI issues also include things like fonts (style sheets *do* allow one to
make text very illegible by allowing serif fonts to be 3px), a background
colour and a text colour to be the same, and other silly things.  But the
point is, it is up to the designer, and these silly features of a web page
can be turned of by the user by him or her setting up her own user style
sheet (at least, that is the way it should be in my opinion).

Things like the shape, size, etc, of the scroll bars I think are infeasible
for the browser (since the OS would have to be able to handle that, and none
of them do today, and I can't imagine a lot of them doing that in the
future), and that I think that scrollbar-shadow-color:,
scrollbar-3dlight-color:, etc, is *very* OS specific (not all OS's, or
window managers for that matter, have 3D scrollbars ... nor should they
required to be).  

And, most importantly, any scroll bar style should be a hint.  The browser
manufacturer shouldn't be forced to implement it if the OS s/he is
developing on is unable to do so without bloating the browser itself.


>     As for the elements of the browser chrome, those are part of the
> application UI, not the document UI, and as such should 
> clearly be (and are
> clearly) outside the scope of CSS. But scrollbars are in, 
> shall we say, a
> gray area, IMO -- and their coloration is a reasonable subject for
> discussion.


Agreed.  Not everyone will agree with what I think (as it should be), but I
don't think that we should close the door on the debate before it has
started.  

Zoltan.

Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 05:03:31 UTC