Monday, August 17, 2009

Basics: Faster Scrolling

I'm always looking for ways to work faster, and sometimes I discover that people don't know about some simple tricks I've used for years.

image For instance, suppose you're on a window with a scroll bar (the bar at the right side). Most people will click on the arrow at the bottom (red arrow). But that only scrolls down a line at a time.  You either have to click quite a few times, or hold down and wait.

It's much better to click on the scroll bar (green arrow).  This moves down a screen at a time.  Another quick way is to click and drag the slider (at the top of the scroll bar). Another advantage of these two methods is that the spot is a much easier target to click on than the down arrow.  These also work moving up, of course.

And here's another tip when your browsing the web:  use your spacebar.  This will scroll down a page at a time, much faster and easier than using the scroll wheel on your mouse or the scroll bar.