If you donât mean the scroll wheel, I guess you mean a touch pad?
How does the direction, natural or not, change overshooting?
Apple mouse scrolling was the non-natural way until the introduction of iPhone.
After that people that used iPhone and macâs wanted naturak scrolling on the macâs as well. I think Windows and macOS both got a natural scrolling option in settings around the same time, but it was a long long time ago now.
Off topic: how do you guys use a navigation system (if you ever use one): do you
have the car on screen drive always up and let the map rotate underneath it, or
is the map standing still and the moves in all directions so you if you/re going north, east, south or west?
I prefer the last but I get much comment from others in my neighborhood from people who donât know if the car has to turn left or right when it is going south (in the opposite direction as they are used to).
Btw, I also hate double-clicking. I switched that off already when I was still using Windows 3.
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The natural scroll meme had taken hold by the time I got my first laptop that had a two-finger-scroll capable touchpad, and ⌠Nah. Ick. Even without any prior habituation to the old orientation, it just seemed super wrong.
On touchscreens itâs funny because youâll usually have some kind of scrollbar-like widget as well, but for that (in my experience) youâre back to OG âunnaturalâ polarity. Little jarring?
I like phone scrollbars because theyâll often supply some contextual information as you manipulate them, e.g. what letter youâre on as you scroll through your contacts. You donât see much of that in the desktop sphere, although KWrite has a very cool feature of showing the whole document in miniature at the right of the window allowing you to quickly locate a position you might want to jump to, which is along similar lines.
I have two big pet peeves in the world of scrollbars which Iâm sad to say I have still seen in the wild not that long ago:
- The handle does not resize according to the length of the document. Why would you ever not do this (except in the extreme case where the doc is so big handle would become invisible)?
- Clicking on a point on the bar does not jump you to that position; instead, you have to hold while it takes progressive mini-jumps (potentially many) on its way to your desired location. Again, who wants that?
As for clicking I am firmly on Team Double-Click. Maybe itâs a bit of a holdover from Windows days where you can launch an executable from the file-manager (I think some other Linux FMs support this but Dolphin does not). It just demands that little bit of deliberation from you to do an action that may have undesirable consequences; running an executable you donât mean to, or likewise opening a document thatâll open in an app you donât want to open for whatever reason (can be burdensome with heavy-duty apps on an underpowered system). Also if you go the single-click route, you need different methods to select files, and I prefer that how I do that in a file manager remains analogous to how I do it with text in a document.
On a touchpad, it feels natural because it feels like youâre âpushingâ the page up, and âpullingâ the page down, if you imagine a long piece of paper that extends from teh screen down to your fingers.
I used to use non-natural scrolling back when touchpads were bad and couldnât recognize multiple fingers⌠Back then, youâd put one finger on the right of the touchpad and itâll act like youâre moving the scroll bar of whatever window youâre controlling. but it stopped making sense to me after touchpads became better and you can now scroll with two fingers, so it now feels like youâre pushing/pulling the page up and down. It is also the way smartphones scroll, and it makes perfect sense on a smartphone.
The beauty of KDE is that they give options to the users to set whatever they like for most options, instead of dictating to the user the The Right Wayâ˘ď¸
Sorry, this had to be quoted. XD
hate it never I always switch back to normal scrolling behavior
Yes, of course, and this is great!
BUT These options are already available in those other places, so do we need/want to change our current defaults, solely because others do a thing? It isnât a huge deal, to be honest, but why canât YOU change some of those settings 
I am trying sooo hard not to be the grumpy old white-beard, but this is not a new sort of topic at all, and I am not at all grumpy. Old and gray white-haired, most definitely.
In any case, someone gets annoyed either direction.
This is The Way.
I am strongly against it on any input method except a touchscreen or stylus. touchpads are not touchscreens with no screen, they are mice that are operated only by touch, and thus should operate the same. scroll towards me on mouse, scroll down on screen, so do the same on the touchpad.
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I used to be quite used to non-natural scrolling on a really old laptop. Over time the habit has now shifted to preferring natural scrolling. Although, Iâm sure if I spent enough time on the other, eventually itâd be fine with me.
My first mouse with scroll wheel needed itâs driver installing. There you could set either scroll direction. Later Windows came with a driver. Later still, the direction option was dropped.
When you get used to a system itâs often difficult to change.
What is strange is some people think sometimes natural scrolling is OK, and sometimes not. Old habits are hard to break.
For usability itâs often best to have direct interaction, not indirect via some other mechanism.
Try this. Put a piece of paper on the table. Put your finger on it. push your finger upwards and see which direction the paper moves.
Now hold a magnifying glass or empty picture frame over the piece of paper. Push that upwards. See the paper moves down in the frame. Also push your head up with your finger. The document moves down in your field of view.
Avoid intermediary abstract devices for a more natural behaviour
When I push up I expect the document to move up.
Change the setting to natural, and try it a for enough time to get used to it. Youâll wonder how you could have used it the other way. Up means up.
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Anything that involves touch gesture â it makes sense to use natural scrolling. For mouse I use direct scrolling as it obviously is a different way of interaction.
I wish I could also use a modifier key like Shift to scroll horizontally with the same mouse scroll.
I use it on touchscreen, touchpad, and most wheel. Consistency is important and as long as they all achieve the same result, Iâm happy.
Iâm not pushing for a change to the defaults (honestly wouldnât know what they are) however having the option to switch is important. Everyoneâs brain works (slightly) differently, and KDE supporting everyoneâs workflow (out in this case scrolling) is what makes it great!
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Completely agree.
Iâve been using computers for over 40 years and when natural scrolling came along, Iâd used a lot of unnatural scrolling. Nevertheless, natural scrolling actually felt natural and consistent in all the devices I was using. Since then, I set natural scrolling on every device I work with.
i never got used to it. i find it confusing. even back when i had a magic trackpad 10+ years ago i couldnât stand it.
to me itâs like the inverted y axis in gaming. you either grew into it 20 years ago using joysticks or you didnât. itâs generational i guess..
but if weâre honest thereâs only one superior input method standing above all else in its glory and strength: THE TRACKPOINT
ok i see myself out now
cheers
Some mice have sideways scroll wheels. Iâve have various mice over the years with different wheels, balls and touchpads for scrolling. Just up-down scrolling is quite limiting. Especially if you use graphical applications. Then smooth scrolling and diagonal or free scrolling helps a lot.
Maybe Iâm a bit weird, but most of what I do is on touchpads, and natural scrolling is one of the first choices I make when I set up a new system. I have trouble going back now.
The first time I read about ânaturalâ scroll. That must be an English thing of naming things in a strange way. Mouse wheel scrolling is as natural as dragging pages with fingers. Letâs explain what I mean:
On your desk there is a paper. It is clamped between desk and a âmouse wheelâ. If you scroll down, the wheel pushes the paper upwards and so it is as natural as dragging the paper upwards with fingers. I call it dragging and scrolling, as well as inverse dragging and inverse scrolling. I donât like inverse mouse behaviors in any situation.
People who are smart may ask âwhatâs about mouse wheel clicking to scroll? (like inside browsers)â. Well, thatâs like a lever that enables a machine that scrolls in the direction I show it the machine (how else it could scroll an endless amount with just 3 pixels cursor movement, if it wouldnât be a machine?). 
About double click:
Yes, I come from Windows and yes, I am a double clicker. But that has less relation than you may think it has. It just prevents to open stuff that I did not want to open. I tried single click 10 years ago and it makes no sense to me and slowed down my workflow a lot. I always have to be careful not to hit a folder or file. Wanna select 10 files with mouse only? Please do not fail hitting the little plus (other hand holds a cup with tea and cannot push Ctrl), especially not the 10th file, otherwise you have to start again. It is also faster to mouse-hit the folder, F2 to rename things instead of moving first to Ctrl, which is the same as doing 3 actions instead of two.
I know we all agree with âthere are different and valid ways to interact with computersâ, but I disagree that a âsingle click is the only behavior that makes sense and everything else is trained by Microsoftâ. Thatâs may part for some people, but that behavior has good reasons as explained above. Both click behaviors contain trade offs and it just depends which pros and cons people care about.
One thing Iâm curious about here: touchpads on laptops were prevalent for quite a while before touchscreen phones became popular.
In the period where there were touchpads but not (many) touchscreen phones, were touchpad users already asking for ânatural scrollingâ? Or have touchscreens rewired what people consider to be natural?