655166 - Horizontal scrolling navigation may interfere with browsing

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Bill Chen]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1

There is a change in Firefox or some Javascript library that when I push the track-point on my Thinkpad horizontally in scrolling mode, the browser automatically jumps to the next or previous page on some websites.
This is a nice feature, but it becomes problematic when it can be activated during vertical scrolling. Unlike a real mouse with a 4-direction scrolling _wheel_, the track-point can be "scrolling" down and sideways at the same time, making the accidental page navigation very likely.
The more mysterious thing is that the browser will navigate to the logical next page (as if the next link on the page is clicked) even if there is no next page in the navigation history. This can be reproduced easily on the tumbler site. In fact a horizontal scroll to the left cannot serve as the back button.
I cannot reproduce it if I disable Javascript and it's not on all websites, so it's probably a new feature in some library or framework. In this case it's unlikely that all websites will provide an option to disable it, so can Firefox add an option to prevent sending horizontal mouse scroll events to Javascript?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set the middle button function to scrolling wheel in control panel
2. Visit tumblr
3. Press down the middle button and push the track point to the right

Actual Results:  
The browser navigates to the next logical page even if it's not in the navigation history (forward button is greyed out)

Expected Results:  
The page scrolls horizontally if it's extra wide; otherwise stays unchanged.
Alternatively provide an option to disable this feature.

Can be reproduced on the latest Firefox 3.6 as well.
Tested with new profile, no add-ons.

Comment 1

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

It's been a few years.. is this still a noticeable problem?

Comment 2

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

(I have a slightly old Thinkpad with a trackpoint, but I've never discovered it has a "scrolling mode" - maybe it doesn't?)

Comment 3

[Bill Chen]

Hi,

This is indeed quite old. I cannot reproduce this anymore and definitely have not seen it on any website for a while.

Comment 4

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

Thanks, let's close it for now :)