Scrollbar moves to where I click

Question

I use MATE on Fedora. At some point, the behavior of scrollbars on many applications has changed. When I click below a scrollbar, now the scrollbar jumps to where I clicked. Previously, it used to page down by one page (if I clicked anywhere below the current location of the scrollbar).

I preferred the old behavior. When on a very long page, the new behavior tends to make the scrollbar almost unusable: I can't control where I click precisely enough to control where the page jumps to.

Is there a way to regain the previous behavior? In other words, is there a way to make clicking on a scrollbar, below the current location of the scroll, to cause the window to go down by one page, rather than jumping to where I clicked?

This difference is most noticeable in Firefox, but is not limited solely to Firefox; it affects other applications, too.

This doesn't appear to be anything specific to MATE or Fedora. I recently started noticing the same annoying change in behavior, and I use fluxbox on Mint. — , May 05 '16 at 02:13
Earlier: [How To Change Scrollbar Action In GNOME 3.10](http://unix.stackexchange.com/q/182186/13260). — Graham Perrin, Dec 18 '16 at 07:16

score 26 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 11 '20 at 14:16

26

I had the same issue on Firefox 48, and this answer worked for me:

Create ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini and add
[Settings]
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider = false

I'm using XFCE, but Firefox is reading that setting for some reason. It also worked with other Gnome 3 applications, such as gnome-todo.

After creating that file, I only had to restart Firefox and its behavior was modified (no need to reboot).

edited Jun 11 '20 at 14:16

Community

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answered Aug 29 '16 at 06:51

anol

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Works for Firefox 50 too. – Max Yudin Feb 05 '17 at 16:05
Thank you, they used to have a setting in about:config which they have taken away in later versions. you saved the day with this. – MitchellK Aug 15 '17 at 13:30
Thanks, this actually impacts most apps in Linux Mint Cinnamon, such as Nemo file manager, Terminal, Firefox, etc! – Shervin Emami Apr 15 '19 at 06:12
this works in xubuntu, firefox 50. Thanks! – Mariano L Jun 08 '19 at 16:03

score 17 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '16 at 18:29

17

You get the old page-up/down behavior via right-clicking on the scroll bar.

answered Apr 12 '16 at 18:29

maxschlepzig

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Is there any way to swap these actions in a config file? Make the old behaviour the default left-click, and make jump-to-location work with right-click? – Peter Flynn Dec 29 '17 at 22:43
Right-clicking simply seems to scroll very slowly. Useful for very precise scrolling. – Jonah Graham May 01 '20 at 16:33
Middle click did the trick for me – Mastiff Jun 11 '20 at 16:09
@Mastiff on which distribution/GnomeShell version? Middle-clicking on the Firefox scroll bar doesn't do anything using a Fedora 31 box of mine (GnomeShell in Wayland mode). Whereas right-clicking still works as described for me. – maxschlepzig Jun 11 '20 at 16:37
Sorry for vagueness. In my case I was concerned with the gnome terminal. My version says 3.28.2 – Mastiff Jun 11 '20 at 17:42

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 12 '16 at 18:41

5

I am not sure of the general case , but in FireFox, there is a configuration setting ui.scrollToClick=0 , which gives the behaviour you want.
If ui.scrollToClick=1 , then clicking the scrollbar will make it jump to that point.
Also, you can use shift-click for getting the opposite behaviour of the current FireFox setting.

answered Apr 12 '16 at 18:41

Prem

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Shift-click still working in 68.0, not ui.scrollToClick=0 – Laurent G Aug 21 '19 at 10:28

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered May 01 '20 at 16:32

3

You get the page-up/down behavior via shift-clicking on the scroll bar.

H/T to Laurent G.'s comment on another answer.

answered May 01 '20 at 16:32

Jonah Graham

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Welcome to U&L, please take the [tour](https://unix.stackexchange.com/help) and check the posting protocol, as well as how reference other posts by linking. – bu5hman May 01 '20 at 17:45

Scrollbar moves to where I click

4 Answers4