Re: Proposal to improve the nomenclature of scrolling directions

[Adrian Robert]

Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen <at> xemacs.org> writes:

> 
> Nix writes:
> 
>  > (Even on mobile devices with touchscreens, where you swipe the text
>  > to move the text up, that operation is *still* called 'scrolling
>  > down'.)
> 
> Which drives me nuts, because it's the text that moves (and that's
> true in editors, as well).  For me it's "page down" but "scroll the
> text up".  "Scroll [nothing in particular but Do What I Mean dammit]
> <direction>" is just uninterpretable to me. 

Sure, the text moves, but we don't care about it.  "Scroll down" refers to
what happens with the *viewer's* perspective into the content that we are
focusing on.  We COULD say, "move the text up so I can see the last section,",
but it doesn't come across very smoothly, precisely because we have this
focus.  Like we could also say, "the lion is moving forwards," instead of "the
lion is coming towards us," but I'll be happy to bet with you which version
gets used in real life. :)  (And why "up" / "down" instead of "forward" /
"back", there are many reasons but the biggest is of course how we arrange
text on a printed page.  "Scrolling" is more amusing, especially since by the
time computers were developed it's doubtful many people had so much as SEEN a
scroll in real life.)