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rdwallis

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I want the world to scroll this way

magicscroll.net
832 points·by rdwallis·14 lat temu·299 comments

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rdwallis
·13 lat temu·discuss
Thanks can you email me at [email protected]. I can't reproduce the error so I'll need help testing the fix.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Should be fixed now.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Actually this doesn't really work. Mainly the problem is when the top page hasn't scrolled at all, for example if you're just using pagination, it creates a meaningless shadow.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Are you on a netbook or otherwise slow computer?

I'll see what I can do to add some breaks to the page rendering loop. I get the impression that the Firefox version needs a bit of work.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Agree but the new interface is jaring enough. I wanted to use bog standard colors.

For the ebook reader on the main page at magicscroll.net you can set it to use Ethan Schoonover's solarized colors: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized which I prefer to the black on white.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
That looks great. I'll see if I can update it tomorrow.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
I tried this. It doesn't work as well. Same with making the line thicker or putting a margin above and below it.

The code's open source if you want to fiddle with it: https://github.com/rdwallis/MagicScrollWebReader
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Is this on the page itself? Or is it when using the bookmarklet?
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Any chance you can send a screenshot of the truncated text to [email protected]?
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
This is a lot easier to learn than dvorak.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
pdf is not reflowable. So I don't think it's possible while still adhering to the pdf standard.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
The scrolling changes based on whether you're using a Magic Mouse or not. With the Magic Mouse it won't snap to the line.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
If you use the extension or the main site ebook reader you can set it to scroll at a specific word per minute speed.

It works really well over long texts and often your screensaver will come on before you need to adjust anything.

It's normally best to set the speed to just slower than your natural speed, so that you don't feel that you're racing the line.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Thanks, the arrows are a relic from the ebook reader on the main site. With that I specifically wanted users to discover the scrolling only by accident after they were already familiar with the pagination.

I tried it without allowing the scroll back on the first page (i.e. stop the white page from appearing behind.) but it made the ui feel stuck.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Just anecdotal but magicscroll.net is a pretty popular ebook reader. Though that might be inspite of the scrolling rather than because of it.

For everyone who doesn't like it immediately please try it for a few days if you're able. I'm working against decades of learnt behavior so I don't think you can judge it on immediate impressions.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
It doesn't scroll on touch devices. You do get the pagination though.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Yes, this is hard to keep track of even after window resizes which changes how many words appear on each page. To do it I'd need to store info about page position in local storage. which is possible with the extension but might be a bit too much effort. I can't think of a way to do it with the bookmarklet at the moment.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
I found some stickyness on Firefox 18. I've deployed a fix but I put a 24 hour cache in front of the page before posting it to hn so it'll probably only update for you this time tomorrow.
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
Thanks. Can I ask what OS are you using and what mouse?
rdwallis
·14 lat temu·discuss
The bookmarklet & chrome extension are partly based on readability.js.

The code is open source and available at https://github.com/rdwallis/MagicScrollWebReader if you want to have a poke at it.