home / bulletins / 3 / page 2

[previous] [next]

New Scrolling Parameters

Two new parameters make their debut with HM 5.0.1, allowing you to control how scrolling menus actually begin scrolling, and at what speed they scroll. Both can be assigned as global or page specific parameters. Note that the new HM_ScrollOver provides us with a graceful means to now allow menu scrolling in the earliest Opera 7 browsers (in HM5.0, menu scrolling was automatically disabled in Opera 7 versions prior to version 7.10. For the reasons for this, see Bulletin 1).

 HM_GL_ScrollOver and HM_PG_ScrollOver

Description:

Indicates whether or not scrolling menus should begin scrolling immediately when the mouse hovers over the menu's scrollbars. If false, scrollable menus will not scroll until the user clicks and holds the mouse down on the scroll bar.

Value:

Boolean (true/false,1/0) or any expression that evaluates to a true/false value.

Comments:

For the earliest versions of Opera 7 (i.e., prior to Opera 7.10) this variable is forced to be true, to allow scrolling in that browser while avoiding problems with the mouseup that would otherwise be required. HM5.0 avoided the problem by not allowing the early Opera versions to support scrolling menus at all.

Examples:

Menus are scrolled on mouseover:

HM_GL_ScrollOver = true;

Menus are scrolled only when the menu scroll bar is clicked:

HM_GL_ScrollOver = 0;

Menus are scrolled on mouseover in Opera, but when clicked in all other browsers:

HM_GL_ScrollOver = (HM_Opera) ? 1 : 0;

Default:

False. Menus are scrolled only when the scrollbar is clicked.

 HM_GL_ScrollInterval and HM_PG_ScrollInterval

Description:

The time delay in milliseconds in which scrolling menus are moved. Smaller numbers=faster scrolling.

Value:

Milliseconds (numeric) or any expression that converts to or returns a number. Values outside the range 10-1000 are not recommended.

Comments:

Scrolling menus in Macintosh Netscape 7 tend to jump immediately to the top or bottom, instead of scrolling smoothly. By conditionally setting this parameter, you can slow down the scroll speed for this browser, allowing it to respond similarly to other browsers (see example below).

Examples:

Delay the movement of scrolling menus for 10 milliseconds between each menu adjustment:

HM_GL_ScrollInterval = 10;

Delay for a full second between menu adjustments:

HM_GL_ScrollInterval = 1000;

Set a different delay for Mac Netscape 7:

HM_MacN7=(HM_Mac&&
         (HM_UserAgent.indexOf('Netscape/7')!=-1))
         ?true:false;
HM_GL_ScrollInterval = (HM_MacN7) ? 100 : 20;

Default:

20

On the next page, we wrap up this release with some bug fixes specific to Netscape 4.x.

[previous] [next]