212000 - Add hidden pref to disable autoscroll

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[rsohal]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030626 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030706 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

The newly built-in autoscroll makes it difficult to use the middle mouse button
for mouse gestures.

It also makes it more frustrating to middle-click on links.  If you miss the
link slightly, the scroll cursor appears.  If the mouse is still under the
scroll cursor, middle-clicking will dismiss the cursor but will not activate the
link.  In other words, you have to click two more times to correct your mistake.

Please add a hidden pref to disable this feature.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[noririty]

confirming and waiting for developers review.

I have an idea about this issue.
How about treat this autoscroll feature as a built in extension like "Mozilla
Firebird" default theme.

Windows build -> default enabled the extension
Linux or Mac -> default disabled 

Comment 2

[ralph]

I too would like to see a pref available to control autoscroll.

On/Off would be a great start. Perhaps the pref could eventually be 3 way: OFF,
ON, DETECT, with the latter being the shipped default and meaning that
autoscroll is off if a wheel mouse is detected, or on otherwise. Or something
like that.

I keep accidentally triggering the autoscroll mode when I'm trying to pan the
page. I realize that the two functionalities are very similar, and that after a
few weeks I would probably develop the necessary new muscle-memory needed to
avoid clicking the wheel when I really just mean to turn it, but the existing
muscle memory has been built up based on years of consistent use in most of my
other Windows apps, and it's been bugging me now for a good few tens of hours of
browsing with firebird, and I think it's aggravating enough that it could easily
be a show-stopper for some users less committed to mozilla than myself.

Comment 3

[Chris Ovsenik]

Can we at least have an option for this in the Linux build please? I really
liked it.

Comment 4

[David P James]

Probably not the place for this, but before this was disabled in Linux,
middle-clicking in the bookmarks sidebar to open a bookmark in a new tab would
also cause the autoscroll cursor to appear.

Frankly, I don't think this should be a hidden pref at all - this is another one
of those classic "some people hate it and some people love it" features (like
smooth scroll). I think we should clean up the Web Features pane by putting the
[somewhat messy in its current state] pop-up whitelist in a button-launched
window (like the image manager) and use the saved space for a "Scrolling"
section with the autoscroll and smoothscroll prefs. Then we'd have a cleaner and
more functional UI and everyone would be happier.

Comment 5

[Santos]

Well, obviously you don't use Optimoz (mouse gestures) with a 3 button mouse on
Firebird... 

Comment 6

[Michael O.]

Attachment: Proposed patch (pref and optimization)

This patch adds detection of the hidden boolean pref 'general.autoScroll',
named in convention with 'general.smoothScroll'. The preference is enabled by
default on the Windows platform.

I also moved the 'mousemove' handler code to its own method, which can be added
and removed as an event listener, so useless mousemove processing (two
assignments and one comparison) isn't being done 100% of the time. I believe
this is the cause of noticeable performance loss on slower computers with
recent Firebird nightlies.

Comment 7

[Nitin (vfwlkr)]

Can we set target milestone to 0.7, please?

Comment 8

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Ad comment 4:
David, I agree completely. I just did a little bit of XUL hacking just to try
out how this would look and it looks much cleaner that way. Here's how it would
look with your proposal:

 _                                                ______________________
|_| Block Popup Windows                          | Manage Popup Windows |
                                                 |______________________|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 _
|_| Enable autoscrolling
 _
|_| Enable smoothscrolling
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 _
|_| Enable Java
 _                                                         _____________
|_| Enable Javascript                                     | Advanced... |
                                                          |_____________|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 _                                                       ________________
|_| Load Images                                         | Permissions... |
     _                                                  |________________| 
    |_| for the originating web site only
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Should we file a new bug on that?

Comment 9

[David P James]

No, don't file a new bug - just add yourself to the CC list of bug 200729 and
present your changes there. This bug should remain as a bug to add a [hidden]
pref to disable autoscroll, using Michael's patch as a starting point.

Re comment #5 - ? - what we're proposing would make life easier if you use mouse
gestures.

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 128127 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch (pref and optimization)

noririty, with the 0.6.1 branch stuff, can we r/checkin this patch on the trunk
to make sure the kinks are out?  then we can still land on the branch before
the milestone

Comment 11

[Michael O.]

I just realized that the pref actually belongs in the 'middlemouse' preference
branch with middlemouse.contentLoadURL, middlemouse.paste, and
middlemouse.scrollbarPosition.

So replace 'general.autoScroll' with 'middlemouse.autoScroll' for review. :)

Comment 12

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

taking QA contact, sorry about the bugspam

Comment 13

[Santos]

Using Firebird 0.6.1 and using the tip on
http://texturizer.net/firebird/tips.html#beh_smoothscroll does not resolve mouse
gestures problem. 

David P James, yes, you're right, sorry.

Comment 14

[viipale+bugzilla]

There's an extension to disable the autoscroll:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=19022

Comment 15

[noririty]

fixed by blake.

Comment 16

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

verified with 2003010 W2K build.

Comment 17

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 128127 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch (pref and optimization)

review request obsolete

Comment 18

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs,
filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change