Comment by LeonB | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LeonB | Hacker News Reader

The OS gets the scrollbar wrong so often that as a user and developer I’ve found I need to take care of it.

It’s fine relying on the “platform” but the platforms are just criminal cartels holding users and apps hostage.

Two specific examples, just on scroll bars. I’ve found the platform failing to support dark mode and failing to support mixed high DPI scenarios. Both of these failings result in poor accessibility and real pain for real users.

As a lowly app developer I don’t have the resources to do it perfectly for my users. But the OS is failing badly enough that I end up having to do the work. It’s not out of vanity, which is the only reason TFA author can imagine.

Making a custom scrollbar because it doesn't support dark mode is worse for accesibility overall. Your custom scrollbar likely won't work well with tools disabled used for scrolling that isn't the mouse.

I am a user who uses accessibility tools and is stating that the operating system is failing in both the size and the tone of the scroll bar. Btw, trivialising dark mode is not cool. I have photosensitivity at times and when it’s bad the pain of items appearing bright coloured is excruciating. Just so you know. (Special shout out to platforms who flash a huge white rectangle before rendering the dark mode content. It’s like pins in each eye.)

The confidence with which you state “is worse for accessibility overall” is just breath taking.

Had you written “may be” instead of “is” and “in many circumstances” rather than “overall” - then I would understand that you were thinking about this.

But no you’re claiming perfect knowledge of a situation that you are not inside and which I am inside.

The operating system gets it very wrong in very many circumstances. I end up having to provide - configurable - alternatives to overcome some of the egregious mistakes.

If the operating systems start to get it right- awesome I can make the overrides opt in not opt out.

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