12 December, 2009

Autoscroll in Chrome (Linux)

2009/12/14 Update:
AutoScroll has been submitted to Google Chrome Extensions. You can find the link at the bottom of this post. I recommend users install that one instead, so that you can receive automatic updates. This also fixes a bug where it scrolled on password fields.


Almost 5 months ago, a bug was filed on the Chromium issue tracker, asking that autoscroll be implemented in Linux.

Seeing as how it won't be implemented anytime soon, I created an extension to add this feature in. Here were my design goals:

  • Sticky and non-sticky scroll
  • Ability to customize aspects (such as scroll speed)
  • Fluid and natural behavior
  • Try to follow what Firefox (and other browsers) do

For the most part, I believe I fulfilled those goals. Try it out!

[LINK] AutoScroll Extension for Chrome.

37 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot for this! With 1.1 scrolling is totally smooth now :)

    Chrome badly needed this. This extensions should be in the gallery for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great work, and thank you very much!
    Here is a website that scrolls well with firefox 3.7 but is still jerky with 1.1 version under chrome:
    http://www.ynet.co.il

    ReplyDelete
  3. Strange. With that site, scrolling is actually broken. I will have to try some tweaks and see if I can get it working. In the meantime, I'm waiting for my extension to be accepted into the gallery.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks! Ubuntu 9.10 experience much better thanks to you. The world is a little better with this, I can now use chrome, before I could not without autoscroll. Old browsing habits become engrained over time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Quick "Bug" report: middle mouse paste does not work with some entry fields such password fields (username seems to work fine). Tested on wordpress and bugzilla...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ah, yes, silly me. Password fields are counted as a different type... that should be fixed in 1.2. I'm still waiting for the Chrome team to review my extension, then I can update it.

    Please tell me if you find any more links or text fields that do not work properly.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you, my hand nerves are save now!

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is a great contribution. Thank you for all your hard work!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. In Firefox, IE and Chrome for windows the "committed" autoscroll (when you scroll WITHOUT holding middle-button down) exits on middle button press event.
    However, with this extension, "committed" autoscroll only exits on middle button release event. It makes the scrolling less responsive in my opinion.
    Is it possible to adjust the extension to behave more like Frefox and windows Chrome in that respect?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wise Ferret: That should be fixed in version 1.5. Thanks for the report.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have also the smooth scroll extension. Would it be possible to have smooth autoscroll?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous: the smooth scroll extension doesn't seem to affect AutoScroll at all. SmoothScroll makes scrolling smooth when using the mousewheel or keyboard to scroll.

    AutoScroll is where you click the middle mouse button and move the mouse to scroll. Two different things. So yes, it should be possible to use both at once.

    ReplyDelete
  13. @Pauan:I don't understand why you say "* Doesn't work on chrome:// URLs. Nothing I can do about this." These pages autoscroll in Firefox, so why not Chrome?

    ReplyDelete
  14. nka: The extension system in Firefox is different from the extension system in Chrome. The people who created Chrome specifically disabled chrome:// URLs. This was apparently done for security reasons. This blog is using http:// so AutoScroll should work fine.

    ReplyDelete
  15. @Pauan: Thanks for clearing that up. Hopefully future Chrome builds will allow for this. I don't know what kind of security concerns they have with autoscroll though.

    ReplyDelete
  16. nka: It's not just AutoScroll that's affected. NO extension can use chrome:// URLs. This usually isn't a problem, since most sites use http:// or https://. The only places where it would be a problem is the New Tab page, History, Downloads, etc. Normal sites should work fine.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks ! I use Chrome on both Ubuntu and Xp, and the lack of auto-scrolling on linux was really uncomfortable. Fixed, thanks to you :-)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks for the extension. It works well; however, it does not seem to fire the onscroll event in Javascript. This can cause problems with some web apps.

    ReplyDelete
  19. @Nate: It uses the de facto standard of changing the scrollTop and scrollLeft properties on DOM elements. If it isn't firing the "scroll" event, that's probably a bug in Chrome.

    I may be able to go out of my way to fire that event, but I'd really rather not because it would slow down scrolling. If somebody can show a site that breaks, I may consider adding it in.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thank you! I've been jonesing for this capability in chrome forever.

    At first I thought it wasn't working -- I went to my gmail tab and clicked the middle button and nothing happened! But after reloading each tab everything is now working splendidly.

    ReplyDelete
  21. @SteveH: Yeah, that's a problem with all extensions. For whatever reason, Chrome doesn't execute scripts in already-existing tabs, until you refresh them.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I can't download this extension from Google Chrome extensions website (file not found). Could you upload it to another site?

    ReplyDelete
  23. @Anonymous: Sure, but you won't receive automatic updates that fix bugs and make it better.

    [LINK] Alternate link.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thank you so much, it works perfect :).
    I'll change this to version from Google website when it'll be up.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Hello, anyway to update the Autoscroll extension to work with Chromium 6.0.480.0 (54251) Ubuntu 10.04? I like it better than MiddleButtonScroll.

    ReplyDelete
  26. @Anonymous: I will definitely look into that, but the dev channel lags behind a little: my Chrome is only 6.0.472.25.

    As soon as the dev channel updates, I can take a look into why it isn't working. Until then, sorry, not much I can do.

    It should work on the official dev channel, though.

    ReplyDelete
  27. hay this is just plain gr8.kudos to you.this is just a callousness not to include this by default

    ReplyDelete
  28. TOTALLY AWESOME!!! I thought I was going to be stuck with Firefox forever because of this!

    THANK YOU!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Oh my god, thank you very much for this awesome addon :-)

    ReplyDelete
  30. If you're looking for a customizable auto-scrolling solution check out TelePrompter. I was waiting for this also, for too long, so I just wrote it myself.

    https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/llbmoignpgmahlngjhegfcklpabfgend

    ReplyDelete
  31. Does this work on a laptop without a middle scroll button? If so, please let me know how. It doesn't seem to work on my macbook.

    ReplyDelete
  32. @Samuel: Unfortunately, no. I can try to get it to work with a modifier key, like Ctrl/Cmd+Click.

    ReplyDelete
  33. An option to invert the scrolling would be great now OS X Lion has been released. Had a look through the code and looks like it should be relatively simple to implement.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  34. 2023 still mandatory app!
    Thanks a lot!! No other ones compete

    ReplyDelete