SCROLLBARS

September 13, 2024 6:22 AM

SCROLLBARS – A guide on overriding native scroll behavior to provide your own objectively better experience.

Read a bit more here.

posted by Wolfdog (22 comments total)

Maybe I don’t get the joke, but I can’t scroll on mobile…? Is that the point? Halp
posted by knownassociate at 6:25 AM on September 13 [3 favorites]

Well that was two minutes I'll never get back.
posted by mojohand at 6:27 AM on September 13 [1 favorite]

Duh wha?
posted by whatevernot at 6:29 AM on September 13 [1 favorite]

It's like a fable where the moral is built into the first ten seconds of the story. (Reader mode!)
posted by mittens at 6:34 AM on September 13 [2 favorites]

>Maybe I don’t get the joke, but I can’t scroll on mobile…? Is that the point? Halp

Minor Spoiler: It is meant to be interactive satire, as far as I can tell. It is intentionally difficult to scroll, and if you try to force it by clicking on the scroll bar and dragging, the scroll bar "breaks" and goes flying around the screen.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 6:34 AM on September 13 [5 favorites]

A guide on making text nearly impossible to read, also. [ plonk ]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:02 AM on September 13 [1 favorite]

Your lumberyard awaits, my Lord. Just scroll down...
posted by chavenet at 7:03 AM on September 13 [2 favorites]

Snurk! "These two formats are also known informally as wide fellas and long lads in the industry." Har! I really hope that's true.

I think this perfection is a wide fella.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:22 AM on September 13

As someone who has just recently fought with the weird unnecessary scrolling behavior on what was otherwise an informative NYT story, I lolled.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:22 AM on September 13 [1 favorite]

Daaaang! Thanks, Wolfdog! I scrolled to the end and it was amazing. Like the Claridryl ad but even more ambitious. I think if I had read it all properly instead of skimming, I might actually have become.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:35 AM on September 13

Remember when Windows OS security could be defeated by a vulnerability in the GUI code for scrollbars?
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:36 AM on September 13

Reader mode somehow wasn't offered for this site by my desktop browser; had to use the DOM inspector instead.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 7:37 AM on September 13

if you try to force it by clicking on the scroll bar and dragging, the scroll bar "breaks" and goes flying around the screen.

Not for me. Is this something I have to use Chrome, to see? In my Firefox, the scrollbar can just be moved a little down, then it snaps back up to the top position. And the trick with the spacebar has no effect.

Even if it did 'break and fly around' this sounds like one of those jokes that aren't funny (except to those cursed web developers who inhibit scrollbars).
posted by Rash at 7:56 AM on September 13 [1 favorite]

It does work with Firefox. You have to 'fight' it about a dozen times, then it breaks.

I have no idea what actual information this site contains, it depleted my reserves of giveafuck after that little playhouse skit.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:04 AM on September 13

The scroll, the scroll, the buttons, the buttons, scrolling so smooth like the butter on a muffin.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:07 AM on September 13 [2 favorites]

A tiny little bonne bouche of late 2000s internet.
posted by lucidium at 11:07 AM on September 13

Oh, this reminds me of the time Adobe decided to remove scrollbars on their current Acrobat DC product, saying it matches the UI. But it doesn't. So then they add a box you can click in preferences to "always show scrollbars". Which you click, but it still doesn't show scrollbars. So then they say they're fixing it, but they're not. So you can just install an old version of Acrobat if you want actual functionality? /rant /derail (sort of)
posted by hydra77 at 11:51 AM on September 13 [2 favorites]

It's a fun effect, but evidently there's actual text to go with this, and I have no clue how to get to it.
posted by JHarris at 12:03 PM on September 13

It broke on the first pull for me, in Firefox. 10 seconds spent on it - funny joke.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 12:28 PM on September 13

(The text content is reproduced without the website's defenses in the Mastodon thread linked below the fold)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 1:28 PM on September 13

These indie games keep getting weirder and weirder.
posted by milnak at 3:45 PM on September 13

The scroll bar shattered in Edge.

A total waste of time.
At least ROLF copter, base, doge, badger-badger, dancing baby, haz cheezburger, pancake rabbit, et al. were a bit amusing.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:07 PM on September 13