Missing Browser Horizontal Scrollbars

[Gary Beene]

If I use Ctrl + Plus to zoom way in on the Gmail web page, the horizontal scrollbars do not appear, as they do on other pages such as my garybeene.com page when the content is too large for the Window. It seems to be that way in Chrome and Edge. I don't know why those web pages work that way. If it's intentional, it keeps people from using the browser zoom feature.

I've read that all major browsers allow hiding scrollbars via CSS.

But my interest is just the opposite. I want to ensure that the horizontal scrollbars are displayed so I can use the arrow keys (or mouse) to scroll horizontally on a page where Ctrl + Plus has made the page wider than the window. I can't find anything on the web that addresses that goal.

Failing a simple Chrome/Windows setting to force horizontal scrollbar display, an API applied to the Chrome window would be useful.

The ShowScrollBar API seems like a place for me to try. I've posted code to detect Chrome when it covers the desktop center. I'll start there. But if it's the web page that curtails the scrollbar, I don't know if the API will override it.

[Gary Beene]

I tried this code (uses ShowScrollBar API) which will correctly close an app located at the center of the desktop, but won't add horizontal scrollbars to the Chrome gmail page after using Ctrl + Plus to zoom in on the page.

'Compilable Example:  (Jose Includes)
#Compile Exe
#Dim All
%Unicode = 1
#Include "Win32API.inc"
%IDC_Close = 500
Global hDlg, hCenterApp, hCenterWindow As Dword

Function PBMain() As Long
   Dialog New Pixels, 0, "PowerBASIC",0,0,50,50, %WS_Popup To hDlg
   Control Add Button, hDlg, %IDC_Close,"X", 0,0,50,50
   Dialog Show Modal hDlg Call DlgProc
End Function

CallBack Function DlgProc() As Long
   Local pt As Point
   Select Case Cb.Msg
      Case %WM_ContextMenu
         WinBeep(250,300)
         Dialog End hDlg  'right close closes the window
      Case %WM_Command
         Select Case Cb.Ctl
            Case %IDC_Close
               WinBeep(250,300)

               Desktop Get Client To pt.x, pt.y
               pt.x = pt.x/2
               pt.y = pt.y/2

               hCenterWindow = WindowFromPoint(pt)
               hCenterApp    = GetParent(hCenterWindow)

               If GetAncestor(hCenterWindow, %GA_Root) = FindWindow("Progman","Program Manager") Then
                  'desktop is clear
                  ? "Nothing to close!"
               Else
                  'desktop is not clear
                  ShowScrollBar hCenterApp, %SB_Horz, 1
                  'ShowScrollBar hCenterWindow, %SB_Horz, 1
                  'SendMessage hCenterApp, %WM_SysCommand, %SC_Close, 0  'works - verifies getting valid handle
               End If

               Dialog End hDlg
         End Select
   End Select
End Function
​

[Mike Doty]

I have noticed the absense of the scrollbars.
A google search for "no scrollbars on google page" produces hits about disabling a couple of things.
I haven't tried any of them.

https://appuals.com/fix-chrome-scrollbar-disappears/

[Dale Yarker]

My results:
With Edge full screen on gmail loggin page, Ctl+ stops at 500%, no horizontal scroll bar; text lines just wrap sooner at each zoom.
With Edge about 65% of screen width no horizontal scroll bar till 500%, and e-mail/phone box can no longer display 20 characters; again text lines just wrap. But scroll bar does not help in seeing more characters in box.

Is your browser not wrappng, and you need scroll bar to see text?

Cheers,

[Gary Beene]

Howdy, Mike!

Thanks for your observation - scrollbars sometimes missing. I ran down several links on the topic, tried several "fixes" such as mentioned in the link you provided. None worked.

Howdy, Dale!

Likewise, thanks for the post! Yes, for text only content, my browser wraps. But if the content is a table of some kind, no wrapping occurs and scrolling horizontally is needed to see the content off to the right side of the page.

[Kurt Kuzba]

Howdy, Mike!

Thanks for your observation - scrollbars sometimes missing. I ran down several links on the topic, tried several "fixes" such as mentioned in the link you provided. None worked.

Howdy, Dale!

Likewise, thanks for the post! Yes, for text only content, my browser wraps. But if the content is a table of some kind, no wrapping occurs and scrolling horizontally is needed to see the content off to the right side of the page.

I'm not seeing horz scroll bars if I zoom this page to full.
It probably depends on the way the page is written.
The newer methods for web content require that the page be able
to reformat, so tables might be obsolete.
I have an old page on my hard drive that uses fixed tables, and it invokes the scroll.

[Dan Soper]

CSS is designed so that you can have your own stylesheet that over-rides the one in the web page. In Chrome and Edge this seems to be the way in: What's New In DevTools (Chrome 65) - Chrome Developers

In Firefox you used to be able to edit the user CSS file directly.

[Dale Yarker]

. . . so tables might be obsolete.

They are not obsolete for tabular data. Tables were often mis-used for page layout.

Gary,

If the page you were using does not require log in, what is the URL? I'll try to read the CSS.

Cheers,

[Dale Yarker]

CSS is designed so that you can have your own stylesheet that over-rides the one in the web page.

Dan,

Where is it linked in?

Cheers,

[Kurt Kuzba]

They are not obsolete for tabular data. Tables were often mis-used for page layout.

Gary,

If the page you were using does not require log in, what is the URL? I'll try to read the CSS.

Cheers,

Tables. Right. Obsolete for page layout.
Couldn't remember the .CSS extension acronym at the moment.
Unless your Table Data segments have a defined width, the data items will also wrap.
In that case, you will not get horizontal scroll bars unless there are data items to wide to display.

[Gary Beene]

Howdy, Guys!

The page of interest is my email at gmail.com. Login required to see the missing horizontal toolbar effect.

[Stuart McLachlan]

Couldn't remember the .CSS extension acronym at the moment.

Cascading Style Sheet.

Describes exactly the way they work: Styles inside styles, inside styles....

[Stuart McLachlan]

The problem with GMail pages is that they are essentially all obfuscated Javascript functions (Try viewing the page source).

You are "on a hiding to nothing" trying to alter the behaviour of the page.

(FWIW, Facebook is the same)

Note that if you use "the GMail Basic HTML" view, the scroll bar does work.

[Gary Beene]

Howdy Stuart!

Thanks very much for the information about the basic HTML view. When zoomed, it does show the horizontal scrollbars.

I'd never heard of that version of the page. For the low vision folks I work with, that view of gmail is much easier to see and use! I definitely appreciate you bringing it my attention.

The method I found for accessing the basic HTML view says to log in, then enter this URL:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/

I read elsewhere that the following URL goes directly to the basic HTML view. It seems to work for me.

mail.google.com/mail/h/.

[Dan Soper]

Dan,

Where is it linked in?

Cheers,

It's done implicitly by the browser. There's a fixed order in which styles are applied: browser defaults, then the web page styles, then user. Except that rules in the CSS may be marked as "important," in which case they're promoted - iirc, web page rules that are "important" over-rule user rules, unless those are also "important."

The browser just needs the user stylesheet to be in the correct folder (which varies by browser) and have the correct filename (ditto).

[Dale Yarker]

Thanx