Page Based Navigation On Web Without Scrollbar

Hi Friends,

Have you ever wished to read the web pages like on a note-book?Your dream is going to be true. The creator of CSS, and current CTO of Opera, Wium Lie, is planning to replace the browser scroll bar with page-based navigation.

The scrolling system is too old. As other areas of web are developing at a quick pace, the scroll bar was remaining stagnant. We have got kindle and e-readers which is bringing the beauty of book to e-books.

Lie has developed a new CSS extensions called CSS Generated Content For Paged Media (GCPM), which, if standardized and implemented in browsers, would give browsers the ability to do e-reader-like navigation. Hope that this CSS extensions are going to revolutionize the style and layout of web pages.

For more information please click here.

Cheers,

Hmm, thanks for posting about this. But I’m not convinced. The codex (paged book) was better than the scroll, because it was a better physical medium. In my view, the scrolling book has hit back with digital technology. I much prefer to scroll than turn a page. The idea of having to click to a new page—or reach up to the screen to move to the next page—sounds awful. It’s obviously not just graphic designers who are struggling to tear themselves away from old print formats. People, let it go! The paged book is a thing of the past. It’s had its day.

And anyhow, isn’t this article just describing epub? Though, of course, this solution would be a lot easier to code than an epub. But all the same, paged media are becoming redundant, IMHO.

Sounds interesting but I wonder if it will catch on. I’m not sure I like the idea of one page of content at a time unless it’s a book that you are reading. I find with web content that I actually like to scroll up and down and review what I’ve read easily and quickly and then return. Flipping pages seems awkward to me.

Yes, like Paul says, it’s annoying to have to click through pages online. A simple way to make scrolling easier is to have a bunch of links fixed on screen, or even regular Return to Top links, where you can have a list of on-page links. You can click to a spot way down the page and then click the back and forward buttons to jump back and forth to where you were. Give me a long web page over a paged document any day.

This is frightening. It’s amazing how much the public is addicted to definitions, rather than meanings ( yes, there is a difference).

The codex (paged book) was better than the scroll, because it was a better physical medium. In my view, the scrolling book has hit back with digital technology.

Ralph’s statement is very accurate. In the real world, I stand a lanky 6’4" and my vision strains. Even so, It would be an uncomfortable to try to navigate, physically through a scroll of paper once it became longer than 3 or 4 feet long ( Print out a webpage , and you see this can easily happen). on the other hand flipping a page of a book back and forth is a piece of cake. Somehow people believe that this would hold true in every “universe”; it is not the case.

The idea of having to click to a new page—or reach up to the screen to move to the next page—sounds awful.

To me is the idea of trying to EMULATE this book thing that sounds awful. The key point is that a “page view” is really like an animation-cell / keyhole hybrid and based in fixed dimensions. Even if the “look and feel” of flipping were to be perfectly emulated , the “feel and function” simply cannot especially when taking into consideration varying screen sizes available. Of course, whne the feel and function don’t work people will blame the graphic/layout for it…ugh! There is the issue of dolling out per page content too. if a click still a “click” ( server requests), for example, if not is is optimized… that is what if in my screen I need 4 flips to view an html page… but as a user I load view the first two flips and get bored and leave… did you make me d/l 4 flips of a page I only needed/wanted to see 2 flips of for nothing? Essentially the argument in a page/site except converted to flip/page.

Really the best solution I have ever found to this was the “page up/ down” keys. I am surprised it is so under utilized in UIs.

Honestly, I don’t even like tabbed news articles, where you have to scroll down, and then you have to click the little “2” or “next” to read the other part of the article. I get why, to keep the scrollbar from becoming a tiny dot and the scroll length to be infinite, but when the content is compelling, I completely forget about that. I get absorbed into the content and I don’t want to be interrupted. I just use my mouse wheel to keep it going.

Only if they make it a CSS option rather than the browsers adopting the function as the new way to view pages, which I don’t see happening, hopefully. If it becomes a browser function, then people will see that every single page has the same functionality and will blame the browser.

Having said all that, the new extensions could be cool if you want to develop a web based e-book rather than an e-book you have to download to a device, or design in Acrobat, sort of like how we have browser based apps, rather than a native app. Not only that, it would be interesting to see what people do with it, other than how originally intended. You always see that happen. I won’t boo hoo yet. I’ll keep an open mind for now.