Scrollbars should be interactive and have a thumb when running on a desktop (like regular Ubuntu overlay scrollbars)

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I'd say this could be a WONTFIX. The app is built with the Ubuntu Touch framework, where the desktop overlay scrollbars would look (and feel) alien. Yes, it's inconsistent, but it does not impede the user from using the mouse wheel for scrolling.

So everyone has a mouse wheel? Thats a very bold assumption. The overlay scrollbar might look and feel alien on a phone, but since we are talking about desktops then it is something that should be fixed. I except that 'Friends' at its current stage of development probably should not have a home on the Ubuntu desktop if its being developed for the Touch framework, especially as Touch is style a developer only environment with no official release date for the end-user. How is the appropriate for the Raring release date? This is not a 'WONTFIX' issue, this should not have been rolled out in this development cycle.

So, one of Canonical's over-reaching goals is "convergence". This means that we are going to write one app that runs on the phone, and on the desktop, and on the TV, (and maybe even on servers if that makes sense, but probably not for friends), and there is going to be a consistent, unified experience.

Currently, as you've noticed, the work on unifying these experiences is incomplete. This doesn't mean that Friends-app doesn't have a place on the desktop. Friends just happens to be the first of many applications you're going to start seeing on the desktop, that are using Qml and look like phone apps.

In the event that you don't have a mouse wheel, you can still scroll with a mouse by clicking and dragging on the messages, similar to how you might finger-flick to scroll on a phone.

In any case, this is not a bug in friends; we are using the ubuntu sdk as it was provided to us, so if any changes to the behavior of scrollbars are necessary, that would not be something that we have the ability to change in friends (and even if it were, it would be inappropriate because all the other Qml apps that are coming wouldn't benefit from the fix).

(you can also navigate with arrow keys if you are not satisfied with the way mouse scrolling currently behaves with whatever pointing device you may be using)

I still can not see the sense in rolling out applications designed for a UI that has not even got a release date. This is pre-alpha work and should not be making its way into the Raring release cycle. Too many compromises in the Friends App right now.

Interim releases have always been tech-previews. If you want stability, you should be using Precise (the most recent LTS).

The good news is that interactive scrollbars with a thumb (== overlay scrollbars as we know them on the desktop) are implemented in the UI toolkit. However they are not configured to behave like that. To configure them in that manner a couple of theme properties need to be changed in themes/Ambiance/qmltheme/default.qmltheme:

.scrollbar {
    interactive: true;
    overlay: false;
    overlayOpacityWhenShown: 1.0;
[...]
}

Now the idea is to have the thumbs enabled automatically when and only when the app is running on a 'desktop' computer (ie. when a mouse is available).

Android apps are already using "overlay thumb/handle scrollbars" or "fastscroll" for faster and/or more precise scrolling, including the most popular apps like "Whatsapp".

Examples:

https://code.google.com/p/kmansoft/wiki/FasterScrollerView

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4485170/android-scrollbar-with-a-extra-view-screenshot-included

So Yes, these are not just useful on the desktop, but on a number of touch apps too.

Fix committed into lp:~ubuntu-sdk-team/ubuntu-ui-toolkit/staging at revision None, scheduled for release in ubuntu-ui-toolkit, milestone Unknown

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.