ActiveScrollbar: A scroll bar with direct scale ratio control

Abstract

Scroll bar is one of the most frequently used components of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is generally considered to provide overview + detail functionality. The scale ratio of a scroll bar refers to the rate of the document dimension to the proportion being displayed. It is usually determined by the length of the document and the height of the display window if considering the case of a vertical scrollbar. The user has no direct control to the scale ratio through the scroll bar, which is inconvenient when dealing with long documents in overview and navigation tasks. This inconvenience is more prominent for small display devices. This paper presents a novel GUI component, ActiveScrollbar, that enhances the standard scroll bar by providing direct scale ratio control without consuming more screen space. This component was expected to be more useful in hand held devices. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.