[HN Gopher] Made a scroll bar buddy that walks down the page whe...
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Made a scroll bar buddy that walks down the page when you scroll
Author : hello12343214
Score : 583 points
Date : 2025-03-03 02:13 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (focusfurnace.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (focusfurnace.com)
| hello12343214 wrote:
| Instead of a boring scrollbar thought it would be fun to have an
| animated stick figure that walks up and down the side of your
| page when you scroll.
|
| This is the first prototype i made.
|
| Going to make a skateboarder, rock climber, or squirrel next.
| what other kinds of scroll buddies should I make?
| johng wrote:
| I like it, it's neat!
| hello12343214 wrote:
| adds a bit of fun to a website :)
| rexer wrote:
| Maybe a raindrop? Anyone else cheer for raindrop races as a kid
| on long drives?
|
| An apple falling on to Newton's head.
|
| Fun to think about!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Two guys pumping a rail-car.
|
| Someone rowing the scrollbar thumb (the longer the thumb, the
| more rowers).
| hello12343214 wrote:
| row boat would be cool
| chuckwolfe wrote:
| My first two ideas to 'innovate' on this was; a car driving
| down the page, or a drag racing Christmas tree where the lights
| count down in 'full tree' style.
| inatreecrown2 wrote:
| scuba-diver.
|
| also cave explorer on a rope.
| hello12343214 wrote:
| scuba diver would be cool
| memhole wrote:
| Penguin waddle, slinky
| davidw wrote:
| Some gears meshing together and rotating that 'make' the page
| go up and down?
| block_dagger wrote:
| Very cool idea! Suggestion: add a trail of breadcrumbs that the
| figure tosses behind them and, when scrolling up, picks them
| back up again or kicks them off the screen.
| hello12343214 wrote:
| this is a great idea! I am working on a few other scroll
| buddy animations :)
| fooker wrote:
| Monkey climbing a pole (children's arithmetic problem)
|
| Cat, with different animations depending on how fast you
| scroll.
|
| Elevator, with stops at paragraphs(/some other break)
| thomasfromcdnjs wrote:
| Saw this catapillar one a few weeks ago ->
| https://x.com/trunarla/status/1893705260142657764
| linhns wrote:
| A platypus?
| ohwaitnvm wrote:
| Love it! Super creative :)
|
| How about a skier with little jumps or obstacles at each header
| andirk wrote:
| A guy falling that just keeps eating shiit.
| oniony wrote:
| I like it. Coprophilia guy, they could call him.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I think you took that too literally. "Eating shit" is an
| idiom to indicate someone fell down.
| Sateeshm wrote:
| I am going to do one with Homer Simpson falling down a cliff
| hitting everything on his way
| jorisboris wrote:
| Change the persons orientation (make him turn around) when
| going back up?
| croisillon wrote:
| could it turn around and walk up forwards?
| mandmandam wrote:
| Stickman Michael Jackson; complete with moon walk, anti grav
| lean, side glide, circle slide, and a toe lean at the end.
| Crotch grab optional (maybe on click?).
| amelius wrote:
| Bookworm, of course.
| slightwinder wrote:
| A rocket, flying saucer or bird seems obvious, for something
| which is going up and down. But as an improvement, it should
| also handle the direction of scrolling. At the moment, the
| buddy always looks into the same direction. Unless it's Michael
| Jackson doing a moonwalk (which you could add too), it's
| inconsistent.
| nosioptar wrote:
| I normally react to sites touching my scrollbar with language I
| shouldn't repeat on someplace as innocent as the internet.
|
| Scrollbuddy is different. I would take a bullet for
| scrollbuddy. I want him on all sites.
| GlassOwAter wrote:
| Fun! He's a great speed walker too
| hello12343214 wrote:
| Haha yeah, the longer the page is the faster he'll move. Should
| I slow his arms and legs down?
| dwags wrote:
| Sisyphus when using infinite scroll?
| nthingtohide wrote:
| Modern Sisyphus is doom scrolling on tiktok.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Can he turn around when you scroll back up?
| hello12343214 wrote:
| Good idea. I'll make him do that soon
| sigpwned wrote:
| I actually kind of like the "moonwalk"!
| TylerE wrote:
| Sorry, but I find this _incredibly_ distracting and unpleasant to
| me. Yanks my focus every time I scroll. Any site using it is an
| instant back button for me.
| hello12343214 wrote:
| what would you change about it
| furyofantares wrote:
| lemme click him to give him a little whack
| mgiampapa wrote:
| I would make it a purple gorilla climbing up and down.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Voting with your wallet is your right. Luckily, you don't
| control the purse strings for the rest of us
| gblargg wrote:
| Agreed. Extension user installs on their browser? Great.
| Something sites implement and impose on everyone? Please, no,
| except for truly pointless sites that are just about silly
| things. It's like those sites that try to force smooth
| scrolling on you.
| masterkswan wrote:
| I like it, quickly tried to scroll back looking for the moonwalk,
| lol
| hello12343214 wrote:
| I gotta make scroll buddy do the moonwalk next :D
| a12k wrote:
| This sort of project reminds me of the old internet. I love it.
| kylecazar wrote:
| More marquee!
| pknerd wrote:
| Old HN!
| davidw wrote:
| I had exactly that same reaction. Someone just doing something
| fun and cool for the heck of it.
| Quizzical4230 wrote:
| It's very cute!
| gavmor wrote:
| Ooh, how novel, and we'll-executed. I imagine this might be
| useful in conjunction with a minimap as "terrain".
|
| Useful, that is, in terms of getting a proprioceptive "feel" for
| the anatomy/topography of a document.
| dominicrose wrote:
| we've had minimaps in (some) text editors for more than a
| decade so why the hell not!
| jsheard wrote:
| This kind of thing should probably be disabled if the user has
| prefers-reduced-motion set.
|
| https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...
|
| It just needs one extra CSS rule to make the guy invisible when
| appropriate: @media (prefers-reduced-motion) {
| #scrollBuddy { visibility: hidden; } }
| DrammBA wrote:
| I just replied to call out how negative your initial comment
| was and was suprised to see the full edit, thank you for the
| change and even providing sample code.
| _blk wrote:
| I don't mean to be rude but that's more of a preference not
| something you dictate to the server. If I had to care for all
| those settings I wouldn't get any projects done. The one I do
| respect is do not track and dark mode when it's part of the
| project anyway but the rest is on customer request
| DrammBA wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by "not something you dictate to the
| server", browser preferences are client-side. When you say
| "all of those settings" there's really two major prefers-
| settings and you already covered one (prefers-color-scheme),
| writting an extra query to cover prefers-reduced-motion
| requires minimal effort and provides a lot of value to your
| site's accessibility.
| block_dagger wrote:
| This is CSS, it's not dictating anything to the server,
| rather to the browser.
| hello12343214 wrote:
| good catch. it should be fixed now for users that have those
| settings turned on. much appreciated!
| robocat wrote:
| Now some of us would like an override checkbox to enable your
| demo again!
|
| I didn't even know I had prefers-reduced-motion turned on and
| I certainly didn't know it affected web pages via CSS!!!
|
| Another 0/1 bit for fingerprinting. Doesn't appear in
| https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ (panopticlick). Also see
| prefers-contrast, prefers-reduced-transparency, prefers-
| color-scheme, inverted-colors
| mrjbq7 wrote:
| I hope you see this comment:
|
| Please revert the "fix" that makes it so your demo is not
| seen at all.
| Summerbud wrote:
| Oh that is a really good point!
| geor9e wrote:
| It seems the author has now implemented this. Now people like
| me just see a pointless page of lorem ipsum. I feel like demos
| can be exempted from filters like this, especially when you can
| only get to the demo via a clearly worded link.
|
| The same code that disappeared the thing could add some text
| explaining that the page is disabled and why, in my case: Apple
| Menu > System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Reduce
| motion (for other OS's see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...)
|
| For me, this setting makes macOS snappier, by getting rid of
| the little animations in OS. If it weren't for this comment, I
| never would have known it affected websites. I've had the
| setting for years with no issues.
| DrammBA wrote:
| Every change really does break someone's workflow
| https://xkcd.com/1172/
|
| Counter-argument against exempting the demo page:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43237672
| geor9e wrote:
| At a certain point, one must take responsibility for
| clicking "a scroll bar buddy that walks down the page when
| you scroll" and then being faced with exactly what it said.
| DrammBA wrote:
| I agree that preferring reduced motion and then visiting
| a site whose sole purpose is presenting motion is an
| interesting choice, but I don't think the CSS Working
| Group or web developers in general are in any position to
| question it.
| Mashimo wrote:
| "Dead dove, do not eat" -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUKmq7UMJys
| crabmusket wrote:
| > Counter-argument against exempting the demo page
|
| I really don't think that's a counter-argument for
| exempting the demo. It's an argument against ever
| implementing this feature on an actual website. Or, an
| argument for using the prefers-reduced-motion check on an
| actual website.
| hello12343214 wrote:
| I like that cartoon. much care and thought should be taken
| when implementing changes that affect users :)
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| I really wish there was a separate category for "short
| and funny" xkcds.
|
| Some of them are incredibly hilarious, but the author is
| just way too productive.
| sitkack wrote:
| Thank you! I just went and adjusted a bunch of these,
| "reduced transparency" really reduced the visual load, I
| didn't realize how many windows were bleeding through for no
| reason.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > For me, this setting makes macOS snappier
|
| For me, it just replaces the slow movement animations with
| slow fade animations instead, which is just utterly
| infuriating.
| rendx wrote:
| If you're like me and want to keep the OS setting intact but
| not have it affect web sites, add the following preference in
| Firefox: ui.prefersReducedMotion (0 = no, 1 = yes).
| hello12343214 wrote:
| good to know thanks
| codelion wrote:
| that's a good point about prefers-reduced-motion... i hadn't
| considered that. it's an easy win for accessibility.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I guess this is probably the _kind_ of exact reason that I have
| "reduce motion" set, but it's a shame in this case since it's a
| pretty harmless implementation!
| yuters wrote:
| I wish the author of the site didn't see your comment. It took
| me a while to understand why I couldn't see it on any browser.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Time for the author to add a CSS VISIBILITY note for those
| with this preference alerting them to a non working page
| because their browser has this selected option
| watusername wrote:
| Would be neat if the author added some text to the demo page
| when prefers-reduced-motion is in effect, similar to <noscript>
| tags alerting you to the fact that JavaScript is disabled.
| stevage wrote:
| Didn't seem to animate on Firefox android.
|
| Also it was invisible with Dark Reader.
| hello12343214 wrote:
| good catch - will see if I can fix the colors for dark mode
| enabled
| fHr wrote:
| amazing!
| ja2 wrote:
| Finally a useful piece of software that doesn't require a monthly
| subscription. Count me in.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I suspect either OP wasn't using the internet in 2001,or they
| were using the internet in 2001.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| That Venn diagram is the area used to draw the Venn diagram.
| ramathornn wrote:
| This is awesome, thanks for sharing it. I love how
| creative/random it is, a real gem imo!
| hello12343214 wrote:
| thank you :)
| pentagrama wrote:
| This is funny and clever.
|
| If I were a developer, I would make a version where, when the
| stick figure moves backward as you scroll up, it does the
| moonwalk.
| The28thDuck wrote:
| Maybe this is an obtuse question but what brought you to HN as
| a non-dev?
| dankwizard wrote:
| Not OP but waiting for the day I can fire my devs and replace
| with AI...
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Darn, if only HN had any non-dev content.
| pentagrama wrote:
| Thank you for your question, it was thought provoking.
|
| Many things brought me here. One of them is that I'm a UX
| designer, and I like to stay in the loop with my dev friends
| --not just to build better products together but also to have
| interesting conversations.
|
| I also have a lot of respect for development because I deeply
| value that knowledge. In a way, this aligns with a
| philosophical idea: understanding and respecting different
| fields of knowledge helps us grow and build better things
| together. As Montaigne suggested in his Essays, true wisdom
| comes from embracing our limitations and staying open to
| learning. I find it exciting to discover new things, knowing
| that there will always be more to explore.
| brysonreece wrote:
| Surprised I seem to be the only one willing to ask; _why in the
| world would you wall the implementation behind a Google Form?_
|
| Edit: Implementation details are actually readily accessible in
| the DOM. Here's a gist that extracts the relevant details (for
| those who, understandably, don't want to give out their email in
| exchange):
|
| https://gist.github.com/brysonreece/b15f33cda30af06b7b70788d...
| rpmisms wrote:
| He wants payment for his work, just in attention rather than
| money. Seems reasonable to me.
| kevlened wrote:
| As it currently stands, code without an explicit license isn't
| usable. There is no license for the code you posted, but
| contacting him could get you one. Using the code linked _could_
| constitute a copyright violation.
| _def wrote:
| It's baffling to me. It's one thing if you don't want to do a
| write up and share it but to offer that in exchange to collect
| email adresses seems so strange.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| It looks wrong when scrolling up. The direction of the feet makes
| it look like walking backwards in a very strange way.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Really cool thank for sharing! I tweaked the code a bit so that I
| could get Mario sliding down the flag pole for my gaming website.
| https://www.gamedrop.gg/
| tobystic wrote:
| Coooool. Please share code
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Will do when I get home!
|
| Edit here you go: https://gist.github.com/sergiotapia/961e40b
| 3282260ca636240f2...
|
| Give this to your AI and it'll be able to add it to your site
| pretty easily!
| AnonHP wrote:
| Please change the direction of walking when scrolling up. Right
| now the stick figure is walking backwards. It could be reversed
| or perhaps made to seem like backtracking (add a little more
| "caution", "fear", etc.).
| dag11 wrote:
| or more easily, just rename the stick figure to Michael Jackson
| hu3 wrote:
| It doesn't render for me on any of these:
|
| - Chrome on Windows 11
|
| - Firefox on Windows 11
|
| - Chrome on Android
|
| - Firefox on Android
|
| Also no JS errors on console.
|
| Maybe I'm doing something wrong?
|
| I tried in both Ultrawide and traditional FullHD screens.
| varenc wrote:
| Do you a have reduce motion set in your OS? That preference is
| respected and the guy is disabled.
| hu3 wrote:
| That was it! Thank you!
|
| I had Animation Effects off on Windows.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/vqBmNUn.png
| detritus wrote:
| Aha! That explains my missing it here too. And it's staying
| off... .
| Jayakumark wrote:
| For Windows 10 : Settings-->Display-->Show animations in
| Windows (enable)
| detritus wrote:
| I meant "I want it to stay off".
| sandreas wrote:
| Super cool. The next way is to implement a Breakout game sideways
| which you can control by scrolling up and down :-)
| maxglute wrote:
| Need some sort of dancing gif, maybe user upload. Should fully
| stop / reset position when not scrolling. Also someone make AI
| bonzai buddy.
| EGreg wrote:
| Speaking of how the guy starts out on one side of the scrollbar
| and "walks" to the other, a decade ago I programmed a "scroller"
| js tool (behavior) that I could add to any element. It basically
| made it so that when I pressed a trigger with my finger, a menu
| would appear under it, and then I could move the finger without
| lifting it until I reached the item I want and release. The memu
| would scroll under my finger, so that if I reached the bottom
| (minus a margin) it would already be scrolled all the way to the
| bottom. Same kind of math as the guy here.
|
| I was tired of having to tap, then scroll, then tap again, on
| phones. Yes, I really made sure that mode worked too, but the
| "hidden mode" was to get the selection done in one swipe! Just
| like I could always do on a Mac, in one mouse swipe!
|
| For mouse interaction - you didn't even need to press, move and
| release. You'd hover over the trigger element and then move your
| mouse down, then click. In that case the menu would disppear if
| you moved the pointer out of it.
|
| You don't have to imagine, just try the Developer menu on
| https://Qbix.com for instance (the menu isn't long enough but try
| turning your phone horizontally to make vertical space more
| limited.. or the tech savvy among you can use Safari debugger to
| copypaste some more menu items into that menu).
|
| By the way, I now have dozens or hundreds of such "tools" I use
| to create interfaces. Menus. Dialogs. Tooltips. Onboarding Hints.
| Speech. Tabs. Chatrooms. Live videoconferencing. Peer to peer
| broadcast that's uncensorable. Ok that escalated fast :)
| https://intercoin.app as an example.
| wenjian wrote:
| I made a simple javascript by copying your code so that I can add
| this cute guy on my website, please let me know if this is not OK
| (https://github.com/jwenjian/scroll-buddy)
| rkagerer wrote:
| But you can't grab him and move him (to scroll past large
| chunks).
| kmoser wrote:
| What am I missing? I don't see anything except the scroll bar
| itself, on both Firefox and Chrome. Do my custom scroll bar
| colors have something to do with it?
| Mashimo wrote:
| Do you a have reduce motion set in your OS? That preference is
| respected and the guy is disabled.
| kmoser wrote:
| Yep, that was it. It would have been nice if the page
| detected the reduced motion setting and displayed a message
| indicating why the demo wouldn't work in that case.
| AHASIC wrote:
| Same for me, nothing happens.
| EA wrote:
| Perhaps because of this:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43237747
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| I don't see it on Android Firefox or Android chrome. I see it
| on windows chrome.
| Laydan wrote:
| Would be cool if you make him run when the scroll becomes faster
| Animats wrote:
| Anybody remember Comet Cursor?[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Cursor
| hacsky wrote:
| I hope to see a % scrolled please :)
| psygn89 wrote:
| Nice! I had an idea that I never coded up. Basically a hamster
| with a parachute that would fall slowly to the bottom of the
| page. If you scroll down fast his parachute will deploy to catch
| up and land once again at the bottom of the viewport. He'll hold
| a "Top" sign when you hover over him and will shoot off with a
| jetpack when you click on him and as the screen hits the top
| you'll see him deploy a parachute again to gently land at the
| bottom of the screen.
| hello12343214 wrote:
| ok this sounds cool
| andirk wrote:
| Waiting for the repo link. I will add a fork where the
| hamster's parachute doesn't redeploy if scrolling to fast and
| then the user "loses". Discourages scrolling. Might be helpful?
| szszrk wrote:
| Have a look at my other comment. I just noticed it has an
| issue that parachute doesn't redeploy properly when you
| scroll down->up->down, but it works nicely aside of that.
| raaron773 wrote:
| Okay now i want this. For some reason i keep imagining the
| hamster to look similar to the gopher in golang (obviously not
| blue)
| dhosek wrote:
| Nah, the hamsterdance.com hamster.
| szszrk wrote:
| https://gist.github.com/iamtomek/5d4a30c1a6765d695950c777e38...
|
| Disclaimer: I wrote zero lines of this, it was made purely with
| Claude 3.7 (via Kagi assistant) with around 10 additional
| revisions in one conversation. I pasted the emojis in the
| prompt, but that's basically it.
|
| I never coded anything meaningful in html and js.
|
| Edit: it silly that in a place where so much discussion is
| about AI, when I paste a _working_ AI generated code what I
| first get is downvotes. I guess you like hating AI more than
| hamsters.
| turblety wrote:
| Sorry you got downvoted. Uploaded it for a demo:
| https://65d22473-339d-4325-90bb-bef215770f60.paged.net/
| dominicrose wrote:
| I wouldn't downvote this because it's interesting to see
| what an AI can do. But it's pretty clear a human has to fix
| it.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _a working AI generated_
|
| The parachute will never deploy if you're higher than a
| previous low. So if you scroll down, a bit up, and then down
| again it will not have a parachute, until reaching the point
| where it was at the bottom last and then suddenly it gets a
| parachute mid fall.
|
| If it's falling without a parachute, it will get glued to the
| corner the moment you start scrolling up. If it's falling
| with a parachute, scrolling up will break it and it will
| continue past the screen.
|
| I don't want to sound overly critical - it's cool that you
| dished this up so quick - just commenting on your comment.
| The fact that the AI made so many bugs in such a short script
| is kinda disproving it "working", doesn't mean we like hating
| AI.
| szszrk wrote:
| You are 100% correct, but decided not to try to fix it
| manually, as it's a cool demo "I did this in 15 minutes in
| ai chat".
|
| Truth be told, it has less UI issues than my last
| outsourced app I deployed. And it had dedicated UI team and
| a few million budget.
|
| The Hamster v0.0.1 is working. He's just not great at his
| job.
| Kiro wrote:
| Thanks! People downvoting you should be ashamed of
| themselves.
| MHM5000 wrote:
| and on scroll up a hamster with jetpack/rocket
| boredatoms wrote:
| I remember when scrollbars were just visible all the time,
| everywhere you went, no special support needed
| IAmBroom wrote:
| And our webpages were generated with coal, and scriptkiddies
| worked in Assembler.
|
| And we liked it! Built character!
| rcfox wrote:
| Reminds me of the late 90s when people would add effects to their
| websites, like snow or trails of sparks that follow the mouse.
| altacc wrote:
| Yep, DHTML Zone was the go to place for trippy visuals that'd
| paralyze your users' browser so that you could make your
| website look super awesome cool!
| mercacona wrote:
| Now it can remind you iOS 18's iMessage. I just upgrade and got
| that 2000s feeling with the new emoji and text effects...
| tweakimp wrote:
| Can you make him moonwalk when you scroll up?
| rowenaluk wrote:
| This is awesome.
| fitsumbelay wrote:
| love this. would also love to see the direction of scroll and
| scroll speed reflected in character's behavior, ie walking up or
| down and walking vs running respectively.
|
| I often wonder why corporate engagements (advertisements) aren't
| wrapped in something like this. people are always looking for
| distractions even while they're in the middle of a distraction so
| a fun interaction that starts out by getting your attention like
| this would seem to make sense. anyway, this is cool
| andirk wrote:
| The act of scrolling is only noticeable by the browser +
| Javascript per whatever cycle it's on; it's not always watched
| except for at certain checkpoints.
|
| To more accurately be affected by quick scrolls, save the last
| known y-axis value and compare to the current y-axis value. Act
| accordingly!
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| I don't see anything in Firefox on Windows. I tried adding
| `ui.prefersReducedMotion` setting as FALSE, nothing.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| I also didn't see anything until I realized that it doesn't
| work if you have browser-based dark mode because the character
| is black and the page background is black too.
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| Not the case for me. I also tried disabling uBlock, still
| nothing.
| 0XAFFE wrote:
| Now combine it with elevatorjs:
|
| https://tholman.com/elevator.js/
| Mizu_048 wrote:
| cool screenmate could definitely be added as a userscript like
| https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/465955-oneko-webmate
| napolux wrote:
| why should I give you my email to get this?
| buss_jan wrote:
| This is oddly delightful :)
| prajwal-s-x wrote:
| Nice, I'm not sure if someone already suggested, reverse the toe
| direction when scrolling up.
| khaledh wrote:
| This is nice. It reminds me of old Windows desktop pets:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CosQ1n7k6lw
| kwar13 wrote:
| Why is this behind a google form...? There isn't even a
| screenshot of what it looks like before collecting an email
| address. What a strange post to hit front page.
| tinthedev wrote:
| It's not? I opened the page and it worked just fine.
|
| Oh, you've either got the CSS disabled, or you missed the
| implementation next to your scrollbar. Check the other
| comments.
| roetlich wrote:
| Just stay on the page, don't click the "Get a scroll buddy for
| your website" link.
| Jleagle wrote:
| I see a preview on the linked page, but still odd instructions
| can only be emailed to you.
| iamben wrote:
| Haha, this is great fun. Scratching my own itch and making him
| turnaround when you scroll up: /* Add style */
| #scrollBuddy.walkUp { transform: rotate(-90deg)
| scaleX(-1); } /* Amend script */ var
| lastTop = 0; function
| updateBuddyVerticalPosition(scrollPosition) { // All as
| before but add the below before requestAnimationFrame if
| (lastTop <= newTop && buddy.classList.contains('walkUp')) {
| buddy.classList.remove('walkUp') } else if (lastTop >
| newTop) { buddy.classList.add('walkUp') }
| lastTop = newTop; }
| pmg101 wrote:
| Would be cool if you could play one sided pong with the scrollbar
| and bounce a ball around the window.
| donatj wrote:
| I love this. I miss lighthearted things like this being more of
| the norm than the exception. Xeyes on 90s Linux, cowsay, whatever
| that was that made snow gather on top your windows (Xsnow?).
| Heck, I even have fond memories of Bjorks website having an
| animated bee that would follow you around. I think he was named
| Meesta Bee or something similar.
|
| Everything is so dang serious all the time, I miss the sense of
| levity and wonder that used to follow tech around.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| Until recently a must-have in my .bashrc was `fortune | cowsay`
| but this tripped me up when one of the spicier fortunes was
| output during a video call with my then-boss, no harm done but
| I decided to retire it to only personal machines.
|
| I imagine there's many versions of that story contributing to
| why these things are less popular than they were.
| guappa wrote:
| So repressed :D Is your boss a minor? I doubt it.
| hammock wrote:
| This is peak 90s. Skifree, toasters, "under construction" gifs
| on your Geocities homepage, and random fun plugins and add-ons
| that you would download from Tucows.
|
| Maximalist and absurdist digital culture that is all but gone
| now.
| donatj wrote:
| I would download sooo many random programs from the internet
| back then, and _rarely_ were they viruses. I also didn 't
| have online banking and my internet connection wasn't always
| on. The attack surface was just so much smaller. Like what,
| were they going to steal my collection of gifs?
|
| I did once get a virus that made a long distance call to
| Japan with my modem before I realized what was happening and
| unplugged the phone cable.
| dghf wrote:
| Xroaches. Move a window, and cockroaches would scuttle out from
| underneath it and round the screen until they found another
| window to hide under.
| beardyw wrote:
| I am not sure about walking on a moving thing. I would like to
| see a kind of surfboard action, balancing only when it moves.
|
| Over to you!
| hmmm-i-wonder wrote:
| This highlights just how useless and unusable existing scroll
| bars are.
|
| The ability to easily see where you were on the page was great.
| And it's got some humour. I love it.
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| I tried it in 3 browsers but dont see anything in anyone of them.
| xyztimm wrote:
| Next version: stick man is context aware and does different
| actions based on the content, for example it jumps whenever the
| user scrolls to an h2.
| concerndc1tizen wrote:
| Lots of positive comments.
|
| Allow me to share a different perspective:
|
| I hate this.
|
| I long for serious content and straightforward UX, and less on
| gimmicks. The modern scrollbars is a good example of how terrible
| UX has become, which is obvious when comparing to the design
| principles of the 90s.
|
| The smartphone dominates UX today. I suspect the reason why
| scrollbars disappeared was to save pixels on low-resolution
| smartphone screens. And now we're stuck with it.
| internetter wrote:
| You seem fun at parties
| concerndc1tizen wrote:
| Is it only allowed to say positive things?
|
| Why ad hominem?
| internetter wrote:
| My comment was more regarding your seeming opposition to
| any whimsey in user interfaces, instead arguing that
| everything must be purely utilitarian.
| concerndc1tizen wrote:
| Exactly, I was adding perspective to the conversation.
| Things don't have to be absolute. You can have some users
| that love a design, while others hate it. If you want to
| respect all your users, your design needs to have that
| diversity in mind.
|
| But you attacked me personally, rather than what I had to
| say.
| colordrops wrote:
| I rarely literally LOL to HN posts but this one did it for me.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I like it, I just wish I could grab it to scroll too. Scroll bars
| are hard to grab these days as GUIs try to save space by making
| them one or two pixels thick.
| robotsquidward wrote:
| How has nobody said that this should be called 'Stroll Bar'????
| gokaygurcan wrote:
| This deserves a medal, come on!
| thymehog wrote:
| hmm... doesn't seem to be working in Chrome 122.0.6261.128
| (Official) or Firefox 135.0.1
| dietsche wrote:
| really cool. On mobile devices, I would suggest inverting his
| movement So that he matches the way someone scrolls with their
| finger.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| users of dark reader: the buddy is invisible if you have dark
| mode turned on
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