Firefox Trackpoint "overscrolling" webpage scrolls too far

English Hardware
1

Not sure if this question should be in hardware or applications - it occurs from a combination of the two.

In Firefox 3 and 3.5 on a Thinkpad (e.g., T61p) when the middle button is used for scrolling (see wiki) this problem happens:

The web page continues to scroll after the user stops pressing the trackpoint and middle button. I am calling this “overscrolling”. It means you “overshoot” your target and cannot easily use scrolling to navigate web pages.

On long web pages the problem is worse. As you are scrolling and you see the section you want to read, you release the middle button, but the page keeps scrolling way too far. So you try scrolling in the other direction and again the scrolling continues long after you release the Trackpoint.

The problem does not happen in other applications such as text editors. It is only in Firefox afaik.

Furthermore, the problem does not occur when Windows (XP, etc.) are run on the same hardware. This is a Linux-only problem.

For a guy who bought a Thinkpad just to get the Trackpoint, this problem is maddening.

EDIT: the problem is much less or non-existent with the touchpad afaik.

2

SOLVED:
I simply went to Firefox > edit > preferences > general and under the Browsing section I UNchecked:

  • “use smooth scrolling”
  • “use autoscrolling”
3

Helped me out, thanks for posting solution

4

Disabling auto-scrolling and smooth scrolling is not a solution for me.
now the pages do not scroll at all with the trackpoint.

I have the same problem as the original poster and what is presented as a solution does not fix the issue, it just disables the whole feature.
My laptop is a T61 too.

FYI, I’m using 3.6.16 at the moment, and will switch to 4.x when it’s available as a package for my Linux.

Got another idea?

5

That’s strange… sorry I don’t have a suggestion. It worked for me, but I can’t give more feedback now because I have since changed many things (including temporarily using another distro). I plan to come back to openSUSE, but probably not until the next release. By then, I hope you have this resolved.