Comment 5 for bug 870693

@Jonathan Meek,

this may turn out to be an important reason to not put the Thumb on the inside. However, could you please post another comment answering the following question: was the Thumb appearing because you were in proximity of the scrollbar or was your mouse actually touching/on top of the Thumb (i.e., when the Thumb appeared, could you immediately click and gain control of the Thumb)?

This bug (870714) is actually IMHO the most important one for improving usability of the scrollbar: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/overlay-scrollbar/+bug/870714

If the Thumb was appearing even though it wasn't immediately clickable (i.e., the mouse was not actually touching the Thumb), then fixing bug 870714 would solve the issue you were facing even while using a maximized window. But even if the Thumb is kept outside the window on Unmaximized windows, fixing bug 870714 would still be a huge improvement because the Thumb would not appear until it is immediately clickable. So the natural instinct by users would be to just keep moving towards the scrollbar until the Thumb appears, whether inside or outside. When the Thumb appears, the user knows he/she can immediately click to "grab" it.