Bugs :
K-Meleon Web Browser Forum
Why the MouseImp (http://www.tv4studios.com) doesn't work in K-Meleon? I don't think it's mImp bug, because on all other programs it works well.
It won't work in K-Meleon for the same reason it won't work in Mozilla or NS6 -- the Gecko engine doesn't use the standard Windows scrollbars, so the MouseImp (or similar) scroller app can't find them, so it can't scroll them. This is one of my biggest peeves with the Gecko based browsers. Why do I care? The MouseImp type scroller apps let me work about ten times faster than your standard mouse-wheel will -- its so slow and annoying to use a mouse-wheel compared to using MouseImp (a best-of-breed scroller app). I'll take compatability over features (like skinable scrollbars) any day!
Actually, the "skinnable" scrollbars in Mozilla aren't intended to be a feature but a cross-platform compatability measure. Mozilla didn't want to have to support numerous native widgets so they just created their own set to use on all platforms. Unfortunately, at this point, they don't even provide the option of disabling that setting.
Andrew
Internet Explorer doesn't use native scrollbars either though. So if it works with that, it could most likely be made to work with Gecko.
Yes, I guess its the price to pay for really broad platform support and a clean set of code -- if only it didn't affect most of the scroller apps and mouse drivers. I'll get back to this in a moment...
Its true that IE doesn't use native scrollbars, and after doing a bit of research, I find that the reason IE does scroll properly with scrollapps is that it listens for any incoming WM_VSCROLL (and WM_HSCROLL) messages which get sent by the scrollapps and also by most modern mouse drivers when in scrolling "compatibility mode". The other method that works with IE (natch) is in using WM_MOUSEWHEEL messages, which most newer scrollapps can use.
Some scrollapps (unlike MouseImp) will detect which of these methods to use by checking the Window Style of the window your mouse pointer is over, to see if it (or a child window) has the WS_VSCROLL style. If it does then the VSCROLL method is used, and if it doesn't then the MOUSEWHEEL method is used instead.
But since MouseImp (and others) only uses the VSCROLL method, it will never work with or recognize an app that doesn't listen for VSCROLL messages and which also doesn't use the VSCROLL window style. However, MouseImp is hardcoded to specially recognize IE and WinAmp -- neither of which uses the VSCROLL window style (native scrollbars), but both of which do recognize VSCROLL messages.
...and now back to the Gecko apps, which don't recognize the VSCROLL messages, and they also don't use the VSCROLL style, so there's simply no way for the VSCROLL type scrollapps to work with Gecko. The only scrollapps that will work with Gecko would be the ones using a MOUSEWHEEL-only method (like those that allow you to turn off their "compatibility mode", which isn't always desirable). Even newer scrollapps that do use the MOUSEWHEEL method can have problems, since Gecko still uses some native scrollbars in certain Form objects, which causes the scrollapps to send VSCROLL messages to the form object instead of sending MOUSEWHEEL messages to the desired browser window.
The cleanest solution I can think of would be to enable certain of the Gecko browser's child windows to listen for WM_VSCROLL and/or WM_HSCROLL messages. This would help some of the scrollapps, but to make Gecko really compatible (and this would probably be more difficult to do) you'd also need to add the WS_VSCROLL and/or WS_HSCROLL styles to these same child windows, which would allow most (or all?) of the scrollapps to automatically recognize which Gecko child windows are scrollable. I imagine this would be a Windows-only fix, but I think I've seen references to Mac users with the same issue, so there might be other platoforms that would benefit from something similar.
Anyone know if there's any Moz bug filed for something like this?
There's multiple bugs filed for the different aspects of scrollapp related issues. One of them is http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33732
You can talk about issues with k-meleon here.
MouseImp?
Posted by:
Stanislav
Date: November 28, 2001 08:35PM
Why the MouseImp (http://www.tv4studios.com) doesn't work in K-Meleon? I don't think it's mImp bug, because on all other programs it works well.
Re: MouseImp?
Posted by:
testera
Date: December 01, 2001 08:51AM
It won't work in K-Meleon for the same reason it won't work in Mozilla or NS6 -- the Gecko engine doesn't use the standard Windows scrollbars, so the MouseImp (or similar) scroller app can't find them, so it can't scroll them. This is one of my biggest peeves with the Gecko based browsers. Why do I care? The MouseImp type scroller apps let me work about ten times faster than your standard mouse-wheel will -- its so slow and annoying to use a mouse-wheel compared to using MouseImp (a best-of-breed scroller app). I'll take compatability over features (like skinable scrollbars) any day!
Re: MouseImp?
Posted by:
Andrew
Date: December 01, 2001 03:54PM
Actually, the "skinnable" scrollbars in Mozilla aren't intended to be a feature but a cross-platform compatability measure. Mozilla didn't want to have to support numerous native widgets so they just created their own set to use on all platforms. Unfortunately, at this point, they don't even provide the option of disabling that setting.
Andrew
Re: MouseImp?
Posted by:
scratch
Date: December 02, 2001 01:03AM
Internet Explorer doesn't use native scrollbars either though. So if it works with that, it could most likely be made to work with Gecko.
Re: MouseImp?
Posted by:
testera
Date: December 05, 2001 01:48AM
Yes, I guess its the price to pay for really broad platform support and a clean set of code -- if only it didn't affect most of the scroller apps and mouse drivers. I'll get back to this in a moment...
Its true that IE doesn't use native scrollbars, and after doing a bit of research, I find that the reason IE does scroll properly with scrollapps is that it listens for any incoming WM_VSCROLL (and WM_HSCROLL) messages which get sent by the scrollapps and also by most modern mouse drivers when in scrolling "compatibility mode". The other method that works with IE (natch) is in using WM_MOUSEWHEEL messages, which most newer scrollapps can use.
Some scrollapps (unlike MouseImp) will detect which of these methods to use by checking the Window Style of the window your mouse pointer is over, to see if it (or a child window) has the WS_VSCROLL style. If it does then the VSCROLL method is used, and if it doesn't then the MOUSEWHEEL method is used instead.
But since MouseImp (and others) only uses the VSCROLL method, it will never work with or recognize an app that doesn't listen for VSCROLL messages and which also doesn't use the VSCROLL window style. However, MouseImp is hardcoded to specially recognize IE and WinAmp -- neither of which uses the VSCROLL window style (native scrollbars), but both of which do recognize VSCROLL messages.
...and now back to the Gecko apps, which don't recognize the VSCROLL messages, and they also don't use the VSCROLL style, so there's simply no way for the VSCROLL type scrollapps to work with Gecko. The only scrollapps that will work with Gecko would be the ones using a MOUSEWHEEL-only method (like those that allow you to turn off their "compatibility mode", which isn't always desirable). Even newer scrollapps that do use the MOUSEWHEEL method can have problems, since Gecko still uses some native scrollbars in certain Form objects, which causes the scrollapps to send VSCROLL messages to the form object instead of sending MOUSEWHEEL messages to the desired browser window.
The cleanest solution I can think of would be to enable certain of the Gecko browser's child windows to listen for WM_VSCROLL and/or WM_HSCROLL messages. This would help some of the scrollapps, but to make Gecko really compatible (and this would probably be more difficult to do) you'd also need to add the WS_VSCROLL and/or WS_HSCROLL styles to these same child windows, which would allow most (or all?) of the scrollapps to automatically recognize which Gecko child windows are scrollable. I imagine this would be a Windows-only fix, but I think I've seen references to Mac users with the same issue, so there might be other platoforms that would benefit from something similar.
Re: MouseImp?
Posted by:
scratch
Date: December 05, 2001 05:59AM
Anyone know if there's any Moz bug filed for something like this?
Re: MouseImp?
Posted by:
testera
Date: December 05, 2001 04:02PM
There's multiple bugs filed for the different aspects of scrollapp related issues. One of them is http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33732
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