Will Tiger have this important reading help:

D

Detlef

Registered
The problem:
New video boards are too quick. Noone's eyes can follow.
Well, a decade ago they were slow enough that when I pushed the "page down" button, the present page content would move up, the new area would be white and then would be filled with text. In this way my eyes could keep track on where to go on reading.
Now this is no longer possible; instead of going on reading I have to search and wonder where I left off before I pushed the page down button. Espeacially when the bottom of the page is about to be reached one cannot know wheather the page content moved a half or a third or a whole page.

The solution:
Version 1: Show a soft, thick red line at the place where the visibility boarder was before scrolling. After 0.2 second this red line disappeares again; but eyes can get hold of their former reading place.

Version 2: Leave the screen blank for about 0.1 or 0.2 second, so the eyes will watch which part of the former display stays the same. The downside is that the moving picture flickers for this tenth or fifth of a second. So solution version 1 is better.


Question:
Whom do I have to contact so Apple will add this (overdue) improvement to the window or pane methods?
 
I have no answer to your question but a comment:
What about smooth scrolling? Imagine the text not jumping but rather sliding down. Wouldn't that be helpful? Or how about using the cursor down rather than the pgdn?
Another comment: you seem to be reading a lot on your screen. Aren't you having a bigger problem with finding the next line that is still on the display?
 
Zammy-Sam said:
What about smooth scrolling? Imagine the text not jumping but rather sliding down. Wouldn't that be helpful?
Click to expand...
Yes. How is it done? Is it available for Safari, Finder, Tex-Edit, Acrobat Reader, Preview ... alike?
Zammy-Sam said:
Aren't you having a bigger problem with finding the next line that is still on the display?
Click to expand...
Well, if I am reading the last but one line und then I press page down, then I would know that the formerly displayed last line is the last line of the rest that moved up the screen; so my eyes can keep track of my "reading point".
 
Ah, I see the point. You are not only talking about scrolling in the web browser but also other apps.
I was searching on versiontracker for some neat applications allowing you to customize your scrolling. Try these links:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19148
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21186
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/25240

In Preview, as my pdf reader, I always use the cursor keys as much as for any kind of editor. Safari and firefox give you an option for smooth scrolling.
 
What really peeves me off about Panther is that in web browsers like Ie and Safari (Dunno about firefox and others) but its how when you actually scroll on a page with animated stuff it actually stops it all. Meaning when you scroll the animations don't keep running. Theres a few stuff like that does need to be in Tiger.

Another thing, is that thumbnail or preview view in finder takes a while to actually come up on my mac compared to xp. But over all i think apple really need to work on the scrolling part of osx.
 
Hi Zammy,

I looked through these tools; may be that they are helpful for some purposes.
What I am looking for is more basic: just one little functionallity for the PageDown und PageUp behaviour: my eyes' reading point shall not get lost during page down, and I know that in my brain this reading point is memorized in relation to the window bottom. So what I want is that after pressing the PageDown key the new location of the page content from the page bottom is marked somehow, maybe with a red line (that vanishes after quarter a second).

I have paid for those PgDn and PgUp keys and I want them to function and not lose my reading point; I thought this little red line might be an improvement to Tiger.
 
I understand your point, Detlef. However, I never felt the need for such an option when you use the cursor keys and rather move one line by another instead of jumping in a block. Maybe that's why Apple didn't think of implementing it. I am never using the pgdn and pgup buttons maybe because I don't have seperate keys for them. Laptop keyboards share these functions with the cursor keys..
 
I think the PgUp and PgDown functions are rather application-specific than system-wide. At least the apps I know most work differently from each other (Adobe Reader, Preview, TextEdit, MS Word, InDesign...)...
 
fryke said:
I think the PgUp and PgDown functions are rather application-specific than system-wide. At least the apps I know most work differently from each other (Adobe Reader, Preview, TextEdit, MS Word, InDesign...)...
Click to expand...
Yes, that is what I have noticed too. On the other hand, it has been the idea of Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, that features that are alike are operated alike -- why use different keys for the same function?
I'll write to Apple!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top