Ayatana-Scrollbar-Thumb should not appear until it is clickable/grabbable

[nick rundy]

It is frustrating, aggravating, and a chore trying to get the mouse to "grab" the Ayatana-Scrollbar-Thumb in its current implementation. The problem is exacerbated in unmaximized-windows by placing the Thumb outside the window. The design of the Ayatana-Scrollbar-Thumb desperately needs this improvement:

--when the mouse is being moved towards the Thumb, the Thumb should not appear until it is clickable. That is, when the Thumb appears, the user should be able to immediately left-click and "grab" the Thumb. This will allow the user to move the mouse towards the scrollbar and know that when the Thumb appears, it is "grabbable" with a click without having to move the mouse any further.

Presently, users have to move the mouse towards the scrollbar until the Thumb appears. Then they have to delicately guide the mouse onto the Thumb before they can click/grab it. This is time-consuming and burdensome. With the "old" traditional scrollbars, users had a target-band that they would aim for. The Ayatana-Scrollbars' current design makes it a chore to gain control of the scrollbar. Not only is the Thumb not appearing in the same place across windows (i.e., it appears outside unmaximized windows and inside maximized windows) it also behaves like something that is trying to avoid the user's mouse. User approaches the Thumb and it appears, but the Thumb is still out of "clickable reach." So user moves the mouse a little farther to try to grab the Thumb but accidentally overshoots and the Thumb disappears. User moves back towards the Thumb, but now user is moving in from outside the window so the Thumb does not appear. So user has to again move in the opposite direction out towards the scrollbar from inside the window. As you can see, this is a PITA!

Having the Thumb only materialize when it is clickable would allow users to just "click" when the Thumb appears, allowing users to bypass the cat-and-mouse chase that the current Scrollbar-Thumb implementation requires.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: gnome-session-bin 3.2.0-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic i686
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Oct 8 09:23:50 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-session
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Beta i386 (20110901)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-session
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-06 (1 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Christian Giordano (nuthinking)]

12.04 implementation should partially address this.