Use the Gesture area to scroll in the browser 24
by Adam Marks Wed, 18 Aug 2010 1:17 pm EDT
Web browsing on a webOS device is usually a great experience, but one complaint we often hear is about the lack of keyboard shortcuts for things such as paging up and down. While there are no built-in keyboard shortcuts for the browser, webOS did add the ability to use the gesture area to scroll up and down a full page, but only while in landscape mode. So, to take advantage of this feature, make sure you are browsing in landscape mode and then just perform a Forward Swipe to scroll down one page or a Back Swipe to scroll up one page. Note that if you have Advanced Gestures enabled, the Full Swipe will still perform a quick switch between your open cards without first going into card view.
(13 votes)
24 Comments
I personally hate that feature. I installed the patch to make it go back a page while in landscape.
yea its really annoying i did that too
I disabled this feature as well (via patch), saves me time from going "back" without having to turn the Pre up-side up.
Or maybe if there was a patched gesture for "back" instead? :P
Keep in mind that you can still use your left thumb to tap the "back" arrow in the lower left corner when in landscape mode
Agree. Using the same gesture to do two different things is a usability fail.
There's a patch for that? Sweet! What's it called?
Wrong wrong wrong - misinformation from Precentral is not something I had expected. The Advanced gesture full card switch is only if you swipe across the WHOLE GESTURE AREA, not a half- swipe as shown in these pictures. PLEASE FIX THIS before you misinform good people who dont know better!!!
How do you get this wrong? you obviously have not tried it - then why post it?
you sir are misreading the article. The good fellow states, "Note, if you have advanced gestures enabled, THAT (the full swipe across the gesture area) gesture will switch cards without going to card view. I know that wasn't word for word what they said but I'm paraphrasing it :-)
The point is there is no lying going on here. They obviously know a lot about the phone and wouldn't make such a mistake, so why don't you go back into your room and take off those crabby-pants and come back out when you've relaxed a lil bit, eh?
Quoting:
"So, to take advantage of this feature, make sure you are browsing in landscape mode and then just perform a Forward Swipe to scroll down one page or a Back Swipe to scroll up one page."
^^^ a back/fwd swipe is a half-width swipe, as shown in the pretty pictures. A back/fwd swipe has NEVER been referred to as a whole-width swipe.
Quote: "Note that if you have Advanced Gestures enabled, *that gesture* will still perform a quick switch between your open cards without first going into card view."
"That gesture" is referring to the "back/fwd swipe" as quoted above (and shown in the picture), and will NOT do a full-card switch. Full swipe to any side moves to the card on that side. Forward and back swipes, which - i'll clarify again - are HALF-width swipes, will never initiate the card switch.
Is that clearer?
Actually, *that gesture* Adam is referring to is the Advanced Gesture -- which in this case, is the FULL SWIPE (or what you call the whole-width swipe). You see, if the Advanced Gesture option is OFF, there is no FULL SWIPE.
Ergo, the article is correct in saying that *that gesture* (FULL SWIPE) will still perform a quick switch between your open cards without first going into card view, provided that Advanced Gestures is ON.
Ok, now I see what he is saying. "that gesture" he is referring to is the full-swipe gesture - referring to the advanced gesture.
I read the damn thing 10 times and thought that "that gesture" referred to the forward swipe and back swipe in his previous sentence.
ADAM - can you change the wording in the last sentence to read: "the full swipe" instead of "that gesture" ?
It's poorly written, easy to get confused.
In other words, there is some confusion in the article. They talk about back/fwd gestures and have a picture of the half-swipes that correspond to them, yet you guys interpret the text as talking about a full-swipe?
If there's one thing we can agree on - it's that there's *something* unclear about this article - no?
Oh, and technically - if you're holding the pre on it's side the way they show (right hand near gesture area) then the Fwd swipe is up, and the back swipe is down...
" then just perform a Forward Swipe to scroll down one page or a Back Swipe to scroll up one page."
Ok guys...fixed the article so the "Advanced Gesture" line was more specific..sorry if that caused any confusion!
I still don't like the feature... ;-)
What's a gesture area?
j/k :)
Discovered this sort of on accident the second day I owned my Pre. Instinctively half swiped in landscape thinking in the back of my head that it would naturally make the page scroll. Then I was happily startled to see that's exactly what it does!
Love this feature. Great when reading articles. And the kinetic flick scrolling is also great for panning down long pages to find stuff.
Oh, and the fact that the full swipe to switch cards (or browser windows...) is also great. I often use the Gesture Click in Browser patch to spin links to articles into a new card. Can scroll, read and flip between pages like butter baby!
I never knew about gesture scrolling!
Not sure I like it though, gesture and then a delayed scroll, gesture and then a delayed scroll, gesture and then a delayed scroll, etc.......
I'm apparently in the minority, but this looks great! It's also the first tip I didn't know. I read a lot of web pages in landscape, so I'll def use this!
what's wrong with scrolling up and down with your fingers (thumbs)
This was my first thought! This feature seems to add complication to a very simple action!
I like it cause I hate to scroll with my finger covering up the screen! But I also hate browsing in landscape! Solutions?