Mouse auto-scrolling is a feature where you click the mouse wheel once and the page starts scrolling on its own in whatever direction you move the mouse, so you don’t have to keep rolling the wheel or dragging the scrollbar. So, it’s mainly used for long pages or documents and stops when you click again or press the Esc key. Below is a demo of the autoscroll function.
Auto-scroll is good for jumping to the very top or bottom of the document almost instantaneously. You might have used it when you were scrolling a long web page, a PDF file, an Excel sheet, or a Word document. And that’s pretty much it. It’s not that widely supported in many applications. For example, it’s not supported by Notepad, Notepad++, Visual Studio Code, or even PowerPoint.
Also, it’s not exactly user-friendly because you need a wide mouse area to scroll further. Imagine you’re browsing a long webpage. You need to continuously slide your mouse down to read the entire page. That needs a pretty long table unless you don’t mind repeating the motion. The other behavioral issue you might experience is the slippery feeling that you get when scrolling. It doesn’t offer the precise nudging tactile feedback you feel from your scroll wheel. Slippery means harder to stop at a specific line or point on the screen. Some of the above are probably the reasons why you might have forgotten to use it. I can’t blame you, I don’t use it either.
The Reddit poll below pretty much speaks for itself. We asked the community, “How often do you use auto-scroll in a mouse?” With 26 total votes, the results were pretty eye-opening. Exactly half the respondents do not know what autoscroll is, while a big percentage have never or rarely used it. In short, most people either have no idea what auto-scroll is or simply never touch it.
My team and I set out to make a better mouse by boldly going where no mouse has gone before – without autscroll. To the mouse infinity, and beyond! I’d better stop here. Cheers!
