RE: Scrollbar CSS representation [Re: Proposal]

First off ... I don't want to say immediately if I am for or against styling
scroll bars (read later for my opinion).  But I just thought this was an
interesting comment:

> > The scrollbar should always and ever be a product of the user 
> > agent. <snip/>
> > 
> > There are just some things that CSS should not do, full stop.

Throughout the short history of the web, I have heard these comments, almost
verbatim:

1) Web pages don't need images.
2) Web Designers shouldn't need to specify between serif and sans-serif
fonts.
3) HTML 1.0 is all you need
4) Scripting on web pages are not necessary.
5) Tables aren't necessary.  Just use pre-formatted text
6) Forms?  Just use ISINDEX.  It's good enough!
7) DHTML?  Why would anyone want to use DHTML?

I'm sure you've all heard these before.  

That all being said, I think that styling scroll-bars the way Microsoft has
implemented it is not a good idea, because most of the attributes are very
MS Window Manager specific (e.g. "scrollbar-shadow-color" ... not all window
managers on all OSes use shadowing).

However, I think that putting in the option for designers to put general
attributes for colouring (such as scroll-color: blue;) is not a bad idea,
since the usual gray colour used by a lot of window managers may not be
aesthetically appealing.  And since CSS is just a *suggestion* of style for
the browser, your browser may have the option of preventing that to happen
(or, in the case of a very rigid window manager,  it may not be possible to
change the style of scrollbar elements).  I don't think that controlling the
size of scroll bar elements is appropriate, since it may affect the
usability, but other than that I see no harm.

If there is a flaw in my argument, let me know.  I would like to hear the
other argument.  After all, I am willing to accept that I am wrong with good
reasoning from the other side.

Z.

Received on Tuesday, 25 September 2001 10:18:02 UTC