Ubuntu
gnome-shell package

With natural scrolling, horizontal sliders behave backwards

Bug #1738676 reported by Cubic PPA
48
This bug affects 9 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
GNOME Shell
New
Unknown
gnome-shell (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Low
Unassigned
gtk+3.0 (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

When natural-scrolling is enabled, controlling horizontal sliders is backwards and counter intuitive.

The volume control in the top-bar "speaker" icon is backwards.

You have to...
- scroll DOWN, to INCREASE the volume
- scroll UP, to DECREASE the volume

Expected behavior:

Enable natural-scrolling and
- scroll UP, to INCREASE the volume
- scroll DOWN, to DECREASE the volume
- scroll UP, to INCREASE the screen brightness
- scroll DOWN, to DECREASE the screen brightness

Enable natural-scrolling, hover over a horizontal slider, and...
- scroll UP, to move the slider to the RIGHT
- scroll DOWN, to move the slider to the LEFT

This happens for the OSD volume icon, and for the volume slider in the topbar menu.

This also happens for screen brightness controls.

This problem occurs for both mouse natural-scrolling and touchpad natural scrolling.

Expected fix:

When the pointer hovers over the speaker icon in the scroll actions on the speaker icon in the top bar should be reversed.
When the user interacts with a horizontal slider, scrolling to the top should always move the slider to the right, and scrolling down should always move the slider to the left, even if natural-scrolling is enabled.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-shell 3.26.2-0ubuntu0.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-19.22-generic 4.13.13
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.6
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Sun Dec 17 19:23:30 2017
DisplayManager: gdm3
GsettingsChanges:
 b'org.gnome.shell' b'command-history' b"['r']"
 b'org.gnome.shell' b'had-bluetooth-devices-setup' b'true'
 b'org.gnome.shell' b'favorite-apps' b"['google-chrome.desktop', 'chrome-eppojlglocelodeimnohnlnionkobfln-Default.desktop', 'spotify.desktop', 'org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop', 'org.gnome.Terminal.desktop', 'org.gnome.gedit.desktop', 'libreoffice-writer.desktop', 'libreoffice-calc.desktop', 'org.gnome.Software.desktop', 'gnome-system-monitor.desktop']"
 b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'gtk-im-module' b"'gtk-im-context-simple'"
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-12-10 (7 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10.0 2017.12.10 amd64 "Custom Artful Aardvark"
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Revision history for this message
Cubic PPA (cubic-wizard) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 17.10 (artful) reached end-of-life on July 19, 2018.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in and change the bug status to Confirmed.

Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Cubic PPA (cubic-wizard) wrote :

This issues is still present in Ubuntu 18.04.

$ lsb_release --all
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

$ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 3.28.2

Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
tags: added: bioni
tags: added: bionic
removed: bioni
Revision history for this message
Cubic PPA (cubic-wizard) wrote :

SCROLLED WINDOWS AND NATURAL SCROLLING
-----------------------------------------------------------

For scrolled windows, the input from the track-pad reverses...

  With natural scrolling DISABLED:
  - Sliding fingers down on a track-pad, slides the view down
  - Sliding fingers up on a track-pad, slides the view up

  And with natural scrolling ENABLED:
  - Sliding fingers down on a track-pad, slides the view up
  - Sliding fingers up on a track-pad, slides the view down

"Flipping" the behavior of a scrolled window based on whether or not natural scrolling is set, makes a lot of sense. That is how it should work.

VOLUME CONTROL AND NATURAL SCROLLING
-----------------------------------------------------------

However, "flipping" the behavior of a volume control, based on whether or not natural scrolling is set, *does not* make sense. Volume should always go up, when you slide up. Volume should always go down, when you slide down.

For volume control, the input from the track-pad should NOT reverse...

  With natural scrolling DISABLED:
  - Sliding fingers down on a track-pad, should cause volume to decrease
  - Sliding fingers up on a track-pad, should cause volume to increase

  With natural scrolling ENABLED:
  - Sliding fingers down on a track-pad, should STILL cause volume to decrease
  - Sliding fingers up on a track-pad, should STILL cause volume to increase

PROPOSED SOLUTION
-----------------------------------------------------------

In order to resolve this issue, I think we can apply the following rule:

  If
    org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad natural-scroll = true

  Then
    GtkVolumeButton widget should reverse the scroll event input

Essentially, the widget itself would undo the "flip" caused by setting natural-scrolling. Of course, if natural scrolling isn't set, the widget would behave as it normally does.

Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Triaged
status: Triaged → Confirmed
Changed in gtk+3.0 (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
importance: Undecided → Low
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
tags: added: cosmic disco
removed: artful
Revision history for this message
Cubic PPA (cubic-wizard) wrote :

Issues is still present in 18.10. (I do see that the cosmic and disco tags were added).

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Could someone report hat one upstream?

Revision history for this message
PJSingh5000 (pjsingh5000) wrote :

I opened this issue against gnome-shell, upstream.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/1159

I did not report this bug against gtk+3.0. Should I do that as well?

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-shell:
status: Unknown → New
Revision history for this message
PJSingh5000 (pjsingh5000) wrote :

This bug is still being tracked in bugzilla.

Changed in gnome-shell:
status: New → Unknown
Revision history for this message
PJSingh5000 (pjsingh5000) wrote :

For reference, here are the upstream bugs:

GITLAB:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/1159

BUGZILLA:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=724935
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=703046

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-shell:
status: Unknown → New
Sebastien Bacher (seb128)
Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
tags: removed: cosmic
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
tags: removed: disco
Revision history for this message
yoyoma2 (sinbad-4273) wrote :

With 18.04 LTS, if you login with flashback, the volume slider in the sound settings as well as the volume slider that drops down when clicking the speaker indicator behave backwards even when natural scrolling is off.

With flashback, turning natural scrolling on actually makes both volume sliders behave as you would expect (up=up, down=down). Using "natural scrolling" is too unnatural to keep this setting however.

Revision history for this message
Michael Zanetti (mzanetti) wrote :

Still an issue in 20.04

Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
tags: added: focal
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-shell:
status: New → Fix Released
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
Changed in gnome-shell:
status: Fix Released → Unknown
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-shell:
status: Unknown → New
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