Put scroll slider on left side of screen

[MaryMartin]

Is there a way to move the slider to the left side? I'm a Lefty which means I have to reach across to the right side of my tablet to move the page up and down, making it awkward, and difficult to see where I'm going.

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

I don't think it can be changed. Something to ask to the devs: [Tutorial] Reporting bugs or suggestions.

Can't you use the movements with 2 fingers on your tablet?

[MaryMartin]

I'm not sure what you mean. I've tried to just put my finger on the page (or even next to it in the window) to move up or down but it just highlights the text and, if I'm not careful messes it up. I don't know any other way.

[Hagar Delest]

Usually there are several kinds of tactile commands. 2 fingers command can be used to zoom in/out but it can also be used to scroll upward/downward. Try to put 2 fingers (not too close from each other) and move them up/down on the screen. Or check with your tablet manual.

[JeJe]

I have a Windows 8 tablet and in Wordpad touching gently with one finger and moving it scrolls but in OO Writer it selects. I don't know whether LibreOffice is any different.

[Villeroy]

Install the following Basic code under "My Macros" and roll your own floating toolbar with 2 buttons to zoom in and out.

Code: Select all

REM Percent value to change with one click
Const cZoomDiff = 5

Sub IncreaseZoom()
	setZoomValue(cZoomDiff)
End Sub
Sub DecreaseZoom()
	setZoomValue(- cZoomDiff)
End Sub

Sub setZoomValue(x)
	With ThisComponent.getCurrentController.getViewSettings()
		.ZoomType = 3
		.ZoomValue = .ZoomValue + x
	End With
End Sub

The above code works with Writer and Calc.

[JeJe]

There's some confusion about what's being asked for here... though it might just be mine...

Are we talking about the Scrollbar which changes the visible part of the document? Or the zoom slider which changes the amount of magnification?

[Villeroy]

There's some confusion about what's being asked for here... though it might just be mine...

Are we talking about the Scrollbar which changes the visible part of the document? Or the zoom slider which changes the amount of magnification?

Of course it is about the scroll bar and I posted a macro for the zoom slider.

[JeJe]

Attached is an extension which I abandoned that has a mix of scrolling tools that are unfinished - one included a scrollbar which can be placed on the left and do various other things - but like I say its unfinished so ignore that.

Included though is a modification of an earlier scroller submission I posted a while back. Ignore everything else.

To use: Install extensions and set a shortcut or otherwise run this sub:

library JeEnhScroll
Module AAA
sub ShowScrollerAA

Up will pop a little scrolling dialog which allows you to scroll up and down by line or screen by pressing on the big button.
If you want to try it - USE ENTIRELY AT OWN RISK - it may crash especially if the dialog is left showing with the timer feature running when you close the document.

[MaryMartin]

I want to thank all of you. Unfortunately you are talking to someone who doesn't understand macros and such. So, I will ask my son-in-law who's pretty good with computer stuff to read these replies. But I won't see him for at least a week.

In regards to the confusion, I am talking about moving the page up and down. The only way I know of is to use the slider bar on the right side of the page. But being left-handed, using that means reaching my hand across the screen which makes it awkward and hard to see where I am going. I have tried the "2-finger slide" as I mentioned, on the page itself and in the window next to the document but all it does is highlight the text.

I will let you know how it goes.

[Hagar Delest]

It is possible in LibreOffice however. See instructions here: https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question ... scrollbar/
I've tested and it works. You can even apply the change and then disable the Asian language support, the toolbar remains on the left. You've to enable it again if you want to change it again to the right.

You can install LibreOffice, it is more actively developed than Apache OpenOffice. Interface is almost the same.

[Villeroy]

What a surprising solution. I'm always in favour of dragging users over to LibreOffice but this one works with OpenOffice too.
1) Tools>Options>OpenOffice>LanaguageSettings>Languages: "Show UI elements for East Asian writings" = ON
2) Close the dialog.
3) With some Writer document open, Tools>Options>OpenOffice>Writer>View>Vertical Ruler, Righ-aligned = ON which will move the scrollbar to the left.

[Hagar Delest]

Well done. Have removed AOO, thus could not check on my xubuntu machine.

[Jan_J]

What a surprising solution.

Surprising indeed.
The problem that arises for left-handed people is not application specific, but user's interface specific.
In my opinion the window manager (or composition manager) – being part of the OS – shoud be the first responsible for the window decoration style.

[JeJe]

There's a short but interesting discussion here:

https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/ ... n-the-left

There's an argument that having the scrollbar on the left is best because your text is more left aligned that right aligned so its less travel to the scrollbar.

[John_Ha]

As you are on a tablet these won't work, but they will on a PC

1. Use a mouse with a scroll wheel. Rolling the wheel causes the screen to scroll
2. Clicking the scroll wheel allows the screen to be scrolled by moving the mouse
3. TouchPads have a variety of one/two/three finger presses to effect things like scrolling.

As an aside, I would have thought there was a Windows or other Operating System parameter which allowed the scroll bar to be moved to the left. After all, the application is only responsible for what appears within the window while the window itself, which I would have thought included the scroll bars, is provided and managed by the OS.

A search with windows scroll bar on left gets lots of hits including Windows scroll bar on left side which suggests you can do it in Windows after W95. It also mentions Windows penflicks as an alternative.

Edit: I have done some digging. It seems that Windows assumes the scroll bar should be on the right but as its position is defined by parameters it could presumably be placed on the left. An application can draw a new scroll bar positioned wherever it wants it to be.

What operating system are you using? Windows? Android?

I suggest you contact your OS provider and ask them to consider all left-handed users and allow the scroll bar to be placed at left or right as they wish.

[JeJe]

John_Ha - the scrollbar is (usually) a separate window. You can examine OO/LO windows by looking at the accessible context of the component window. You can actually resize/reposition the scrollbar window... you could make it half height for example... I tried this after seeing this thread... but it won't work properly in that position.

[John_Ha]

JeJe

Thanks. I am not a programmer but I did find Scroll Bar and hence Scroll Box Position and Scrolling Range

A thought. Is there a workaround for the poster where you could put icons on the left side of the tablet for the keys which operate the scroll bar?

[JeJe]

John_Ha - A scroll bar control is a separate independent control that you can use to do things and it can have the keyboard focus. Just like you can have a button on its own.

The Writer scrollbar is different, its attached to the text window. When the arrow keys are pressed the text window always gets the key presses - never the scrollbar.

The great thing about OO (and why I use it) is you can access things about the Writer window - like access the scrollbar and find its scrolling position. I suspect Microsoft Word doesn't allow that access but in OO Basic its all available.