629507 - Make keyboard scrolling the same speed as scroll-arrow scrolling

Status: NEW

(Core :: Layout, defect)

Description

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

By listening for keyup and keydown on arrow keys instead of keypresses, and doing our own repeating, we wouldn't be dependent on the keyboard repeat rate and we could make scrolling via keyboard the same speed as scrolling with mouse. This would give a more consistent experience for users and make it easier for us to tweak scroll velocity consistently.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

Decoupling "arrow key held down" scrolling from the key-repeat rate sounds good. But the current rate for "scrollbar arrow held down" scrolling isn't a great target; it's abysmally slow on Mac.

Comment 2

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Then we should fix that at the same time.

Comment 3

[Siddhartha Dugar [:sdrocking]]

See Bug 725700

Comment 4

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

(In reply to Siddhartha Dugar (sdrocking) from comment #3)
> See Bug 725700

That bug was focused on distance, whereas this bug is focused on the notification rate of keyboard scrolling events.

Comment 5

[Avi Halachmi (:avih)]

Unless such discussion is taking place elsewhere, I'm not sure overriding the user's pref for repeat rate is desirable or expected. I know I'll be annoyed if a browser overrides mine, and down-arrow scrolling is definitely something which I might have in mind when changing repeat rate.

OTOH, making scroll-arrow replicate down-arrow repeat-rate (possibly even fully - with delay after first trigger) might be very desirable IMO. However, even if that's impossible, I would personally still prefer that down-arrow respects my prefs, even if scroll-arrow doesn't.

Comment 6

[fawer]

I like my keyboard repeat rate at the speed I set it at. The scroll-arrow repeat rate is far too slow so I never use it. Slowing down my down-arrow repeat rate from the rate I like to the one you think I ought to have is a usability concern. Almost every other application obeys the global repeat rate; why should Firefox specifically ignore it? No consistency is gained here.

Even letting us change the repeat rate for Firefox is a problem. Discovery and time are issues, as most users do not want to browse around in their about:config file to change such a minor configuration.
To put it in perspective, you would not want other apps to override the repeat rate; Firefox is no different.