Scrolling vs Paging?

barryem · 06-06-2016, 08:51 PM

I'm guessing this is the right group for this topic even though Android's Moon+ is the only scrolling reading app I'm currently aware of. But there have been other scrolling apps in other platforms in the past so I put it here. It won't hurt my feelings if it gets moved.

Anyway when I read an ebook on my phone I use Moon+ and I have it set to scroll manually. When I read on my Kindle or my Kobo, of course it pages. I prefer the Kindle to the phone overall but the phone is always with me and it's becomming more and more my reader of choice and a big part of that is because I can scroll.

The very first ereader I had was on an HP95lx maybe 30 years ago. It scrolled. Paging wasn't an option and that made sense because in those days, before most people heard of Windows or Macs, computer screens scrolled. That's just how computer screens worked.

That's still true of pretty much anything except ereaders. Browse the web and you scroll, you don't page, except in some special situations where the site makes it look like paging so you'll see more ads. Use a word processor or a spreadsheet and you scroll.

The majority of the ereading apps on the Palm Pilot, where ereading first began to be popular, scrolled. A few paged. Actually I think the majority of the paging ones were the ones provided by book sellers and even a lot of those scrolled.

Probably because books page, today's ereaders do. Or maybe the reason has more to do with e-ink's limitations and apps on LCD try to work like e-ink. For whatever reason, apps tend to page and they put a lot of technology into making paging as impressive as possible.

When I'm reading and I reach the end of a paragraph I'll scroll so the next paragraph is near the top of the screen. In most cases that lets me see the entire paragraph. When I finish that, either that paragraph or the next one if they're short, I scroll down again just as much as I want to and it makes me feel like I'm not losing any context. If I have to page, all the text is gone and I have a new context.

Worse than that, on my Kindle near the bottom of the page my finger is poised to swipe and I have to focus just a little bit of attention on not jumping the gun, which I kind of tend to do if I don't stop myself, and that takes a little bit of my attention away from the book.

Granted these are small things. I do enjoy reading on my Kindle. But even though these things are small, they're there and I enjoy scrolling more because I can do that with practically no distraction from reading. My mind is on the reading and if I scroll early it's simply no problem.

From a programming perspective and probably a hardware perspective, although I'm a lot more familiar with programming, scrolling is far more efficient. It's a natural and simple process for a computer that uses very few CPU cycles compared to the far more complex paging process. That might not be true of e-ink at least from a hardware perspective but it might be. I've heard both ways on that but never really from anyone who's likely to be authoratative. I'm certainly not. I know very little about e-ink.

I'm going to make a wild guess based on more than a little programming experience that paging uses several thousand times as many CPU cycles as scrolling. I've written lots and lots of scrolling procedures in the early days of computer screens when that wasn't part of the OS yet. This was long before the days of micro-computers. I can't recall ever writing a paging procedure although I may have. I'm just not sure. So my guess is kind of a wild one. It might not be that bad. It probably is a lot worse when the page curls.

I doubt if Gutenberg invented pages although he may have. More likely that grew out of the need to keep paper small centuries before Gutenberg. But the early printing presses couldn't do anything except create individual pages. So we were stuck with them. And scrolls were probably unweildy.

But computers can not only overcome that difficulty, scrolling is more natural to them.

What I'm hoping for in response to all this is some refutation. I'm sure a lot of people are going to say simply "I like paging better." and that's a reasonable argument but it doesn't refute what I've said. This is a smart forum full of smart people so let's have it. Why do you like paging more?

Barry

Cinisajoy · 06-06-2016, 08:54 PM

I don't like scrolling. To me, it makes reading harder. It is way too easy to scroll too far.

Turtle91 · 06-06-2016, 09:28 PM

Not sure what kind of phone you are using, but on the iPhone, Marvin 3.0 has a scroll feature (it even autoscrolls at the user's desired reading rate). It is in Beta now....but it will be out really, really, really, soon - and it's awesome!

I can page or scroll depending on my mood that day, they each have benefits.

I like scrolling if I'm snuggled in bed next to my honey and don't want to keep moving my hand to flip the page.

I like paging if I'm researching (ie thinking hard about something) and want to stare at non-moving text - or I'm in an environment where I may get interrupted repeatedly (eg work). It's easier to put the phone down when the boss walks around the corner and pick it up to the same page when he's gone! lol

DiapDealer · 06-06-2016, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barryem

Probably because books page, today's ereaders do.

No "probably" about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by barryem

This is a smart forum full of smart people so let's have it. Why do you like paging more?

Because I want my eyes to do the moving, not the words and paragraphs.

dickloraine · 06-06-2016, 10:29 PM

I have no real problem reading scrolling text, but most of what I read that way is in the browser and relatively short texts and paragraphs. It is slightly more taxing to constantly scroll and keep the line in sight than to page. Sometimes I loose where I was. For longer texts like novels I prefer paging.

Especially for e-ink: Scrolling would decrease battery time and the refresh rate would probably be terrible to look at.

Tikker · 06-06-2016, 10:59 PM

the thing I like about Moon+ is that you can scroll OR page, whatever works

I generally prefer paging, but there's times where I scroll a bit, and it's nice that it just works

library addict · 06-07-2016, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Because I want my eyes to do the moving, not the words and paragraphs.

This.

Plus with page I can see a number for how many pages I have left in the book. I like going by page numbers rather a percentage.

cromag · 06-07-2016, 02:55 AM

Even when I'm reading on my computer screen I scroll a page (or so) at a time. I bring up a chunk of text, read it, and bring up the next.

I prefer the page-at-a-time approach to reading.

HarryT · 06-07-2016, 05:12 AM

Paging is a lot easier on the eye than scrolling. If the text itself is changing position on the screen, a momentary loss of concentration can result in you losing your reading position. Autoscrolling is worst of all, because I don't read at a uniform speed - I stop and start, go back and re-read an earlier paragraph, etc.

Cesca · 06-07-2016, 06:45 AM

I prefer scrolling on my iPads. I find it less tiring for my eyes not to have to move them while reading from the top of the screen to the bottom, especially on a 9.5" screen, similar to reading news online. I just prefer slowly scrolling with one hand while keeping my eyes moving over a smaller area. That's one reason I like the Bookmaster app. But when I'm using a 6" ereader, it feels more natural to flip pages. I like having options!

Apache · 06-07-2016, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

No "probably" about it.

Because I want my eyes to do the moving, not the words and paragraphs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by library addict

This.

Plus with page I can see a number for how many pages I have left in the book. I like going by page numbers rather a percentage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cromag

Even when I'm reading on my computer screen I scroll a page (or so) at a time. I bring up a chunk of text, read it, and bring up the next.

I prefer the page-at-a-time approach to reading.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Paging is a lot easier on the eye than scrolling. If the text itself is changing position on the screen, a momentary loss of concentration can result in you losing your reading position. Autoscrolling is worst of all, because I don't read at a uniform speed - I stop and start, go back and re-read an earlier paragraph, etc.

Thanks' to all of you for stating my thoughts too.

Apache

MGlitch · 06-07-2016, 09:17 AM

Auto-scrolling would be bad for eink, the entire screen being redrawn every few seconds would either invite ghosting, or require full screen refreshes fairly often.

I prefer paging over scrolling, it's easier to stop and go, even when I'm reading on a computer I finish the 'page' and scroll down rather than scroll as I finish a line.

theducks · 06-07-2016, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

No "probably" about it.

Because I want my eyes to do the moving, not the words and paragraphs.

What he said!

With Scrolling, I have to LOCATE the next Paragraph LINE
(start)

With Paging... It is always in the same place

Scrolling is for Large PICTURES or Charts that wont READABLE fit on the screen

barryem · 06-07-2016, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Paging is a lot easier on the eye than scrolling. If the text itself is changing position on the screen, a momentary loss of concentration can result in you losing your reading position. Autoscrolling is worst of all, because I don't read at a uniform speed - I stop and start, go back and re-read an earlier paragraph, etc.

I also don't read at a constant speed and for that reason I don't use auto-scrolling. My comments were all about manual scrolling. I said that at the beginning but I probably should have mentioned it when I talked about scrolling to make it clearer.

Another thing about auto-scrolling is that it puts me under pressure. i'm obligated to try and keep up and that would take all the fun out of reading.

Barry

barryem · 06-07-2016, 02:15 PM

So far nearly all the comments seem to be about auto-scrolling, which wasn't what I was talking about. I don't care for auto-scrolling either.

I was referring to using a finger to move down the text as needed. I usually read a paragraph and then scroll. Sometimes 2 paragraphs if they're small. My eyes do the moving. Scrolling, the way I do it, happens a little bit more often than paging but not a lot more. It's not a continual thing at all.

I really am referring to LCD. I'm not completely convinced that scrolling can't work well on e-ink but I'm not sure it can either so it's not really what I'm talking about. In any case scrolling can't work on any current e-ink devices I'm aware of.

The reason for my doubts about e-ink being a problem is a video I watched linked to by one of the ereader sites about a year ago showing someone who had converted an e-ink reader, I think it was a Kobo, to be used as a monitor for some computer. I don't recall what computer. The video showed it playing games. I don't recall if they were 3D games but there was definitely action and it was smooth and sharp and seemed to work well. As I recall he wrote his own drivers for the e-ink and there was some kind of explanation for why they improved things so much. I don't recall what that explanation was. Does anyone else remember seeing that?

Anyway my post was really about LCD, not e-ink. Or really it was about scrolling, not screen technology.

Barry

06-06-2016, 08:51 PM	#1
barryem Wizard Posts: 2,459 Karma: 68781975 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Arkansas Device: Paperwhite 4	Scrolling vs Paging? I'm guessing this is the right group for this topic even though Android's Moon+ is the only scrolling reading app I'm currently aware of. But there have been other scrolling apps in other platforms in the past so I put it here. It won't hurt my feelings if it gets moved. Anyway when I read an ebook on my phone I use Moon+ and I have it set to scroll manually. When I read on my Kindle or my Kobo, of course it pages. I prefer the Kindle to the phone overall but the phone is always with me and it's becomming more and more my reader of choice and a big part of that is because I can scroll. The very first ereader I had was on an HP95lx maybe 30 years ago. It scrolled. Paging wasn't an option and that made sense because in those days, before most people heard of Windows or Macs, computer screens scrolled. That's just how computer screens worked. That's still true of pretty much anything except ereaders. Browse the web and you scroll, you don't page, except in some special situations where the site makes it look like paging so you'll see more ads. Use a word processor or a spreadsheet and you scroll. The majority of the ereading apps on the Palm Pilot, where ereading first began to be popular, scrolled. A few paged. Actually I think the majority of the paging ones were the ones provided by book sellers and even a lot of those scrolled. Probably because books page, today's ereaders do. Or maybe the reason has more to do with e-ink's limitations and apps on LCD try to work like e-ink. For whatever reason, apps tend to page and they put a lot of technology into making paging as impressive as possible. When I'm reading and I reach the end of a paragraph I'll scroll so the next paragraph is near the top of the screen. In most cases that lets me see the entire paragraph. When I finish that, either that paragraph or the next one if they're short, I scroll down again just as much as I want to and it makes me feel like I'm not losing any context. If I have to page, all the text is gone and I have a new context. Worse than that, on my Kindle near the bottom of the page my finger is poised to swipe and I have to focus just a little bit of attention on not jumping the gun, which I kind of tend to do if I don't stop myself, and that takes a little bit of my attention away from the book. Granted these are small things. I do enjoy reading on my Kindle. But even though these things are small, they're there and I enjoy scrolling more because I can do that with practically no distraction from reading. My mind is on the reading and if I scroll early it's simply no problem. From a programming perspective and probably a hardware perspective, although I'm a lot more familiar with programming, scrolling is far more efficient. It's a natural and simple process for a computer that uses very few CPU cycles compared to the far more complex paging process. That might not be true of e-ink at least from a hardware perspective but it might be. I've heard both ways on that but never really from anyone who's likely to be authoratative. I'm certainly not. I know very little about e-ink. I'm going to make a wild guess based on more than a little programming experience that paging uses several thousand times as many CPU cycles as scrolling. I've written lots and lots of scrolling procedures in the early days of computer screens when that wasn't part of the OS yet. This was long before the days of micro-computers. I can't recall ever writing a paging procedure although I may have. I'm just not sure. So my guess is kind of a wild one. It might not be that bad. It probably is a lot worse when the page curls. I doubt if Gutenberg invented pages although he may have. More likely that grew out of the need to keep paper small centuries before Gutenberg. But the early printing presses couldn't do anything except create individual pages. So we were stuck with them. And scrolls were probably unweildy. But computers can not only overcome that difficulty, scrolling is more natural to them. What I'm hoping for in response to all this is some refutation. I'm sure a lot of people are going to say simply "I like paging better." and that's a reasonable argument but it doesn't refute what I've said. This is a smart forum full of smart people so let's have it. Why do you like paging more? Barry Last edited by barryem; 06-06-2016 at 08:53 PM.

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06-06-2016, 08:54 PM	#2
Cinisajoy Just a Yellow Smiley. Posts: 19,161 Karma: 83862859 Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Texas Device: K4, K5, fire, kobo, galaxy	I don't like scrolling. To me, it makes reading harder. It is way too easy to scroll too far.

06-06-2016, 09:28 PM	#3
Turtle91 A Hairy Wizard Posts: 3,353 Karma: 20171571 Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Charleston, SC today Device: iPhone 15/11/X/6/iPad 1,2,Air & Air Pro/Surface Pro/Kindle PW & Fire	Not sure what kind of phone you are using, but on the iPhone, Marvin 3.0 has a scroll feature (it even autoscrolls at the user's desired reading rate). It is in Beta now....but it will be out really, really, really, soon - and it's awesome! I can page or scroll depending on my mood that day, they each have benefits. I like scrolling if I'm snuggled in bed next to my honey and don't want to keep moving my hand to flip the page. I like paging if I'm researching (ie thinking hard about something) and want to stare at non-moving text - or I'm in an environment where I may get interrupted repeatedly (eg work). It's easier to put the phone down when the boss walks around the corner and pick it up to the same page when he's gone! lol

06-06-2016, 10:29 PM	#5
dickloraine Guru Posts: 631 Karma: 7544528 Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Berlin Device: PRS 350, Kobo Aura	I have no real problem reading scrolling text, but most of what I read that way is in the browser and relatively short texts and paragraphs. It is slightly more taxing to constantly scroll and keep the line in sight than to page. Sometimes I loose where I was. For longer texts like novels I prefer paging. Especially for e-ink: Scrolling would decrease battery time and the refresh rate would probably be terrible to look at.

06-06-2016, 10:59 PM	#6
Tikker Zealot Posts: 117 Karma: 2329890 Join Date: Jul 2014 Device: Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4, Galaxy S7, Kobo Aura	the thing I like about Moon+ is that you can scroll OR page, whatever works I generally prefer paging, but there's times where I scroll a bit, and it's nice that it just works

06-07-2016, 02:55 AM	#8
cromag Surfin the alpha waves ~~ Posts: 26,294 Karma: 459765791 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: New Jersey Device: Jetbook Lite & Mini, Nook STR, Kobo, Hanvon N516, Kindle 2, Androids	Even when I'm reading on my computer screen I scroll a page (or so) at a time. I bring up a chunk of text, read it, and bring up the next. I prefer the page-at-a-time approach to reading.

06-07-2016, 05:12 AM	#9
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Paging is a lot easier on the eye than scrolling. If the text itself is changing position on the screen, a momentary loss of concentration can result in you losing your reading position. Autoscrolling is worst of all, because I don't read at a uniform speed - I stop and start, go back and re-read an earlier paragraph, etc.

06-07-2016, 06:45 AM	#10
Cesca Groupie Posts: 155 Karma: 1106620 Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Home of the Maple Leaf Device: Kobos, iPads, Sonys	I prefer scrolling on my iPads. I find it less tiring for my eyes not to have to move them while reading from the top of the screen to the bottom, especially on a 9.5" screen, similar to reading news online. I just prefer slowly scrolling with one hand while keeping my eyes moving over a smaller area. That's one reason I like the Bookmaster app. But when I'm using a 6" ereader, it feels more natural to flip pages. I like having options!

06-07-2016, 09:17 AM	#12
MGlitch Wizard Posts: 2,855 Karma: 22003124 Join Date: Aug 2014 Device: Kobo Forma, Kobo Sage, Kobo Libra 2	Auto-scrolling would be bad for eink, the entire screen being redrawn every few seconds would either invite ghosting, or require full screen refreshes fairly often. I prefer paging over scrolling, it's easier to stop and go, even when I'm reading on a computer I finish the 'page' and scroll down rather than scroll as I finish a line.

06-07-2016, 02:15 PM	#15
barryem Wizard Posts: 2,459 Karma: 68781975 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Arkansas Device: Paperwhite 4	So far nearly all the comments seem to be about auto-scrolling, which wasn't what I was talking about. I don't care for auto-scrolling either. I was referring to using a finger to move down the text as needed. I usually read a paragraph and then scroll. Sometimes 2 paragraphs if they're small. My eyes do the moving. Scrolling, the way I do it, happens a little bit more often than paging but not a lot more. It's not a continual thing at all. I really am referring to LCD. I'm not completely convinced that scrolling can't work well on e-ink but I'm not sure it can either so it's not really what I'm talking about. In any case scrolling can't work on any current e-ink devices I'm aware of. The reason for my doubts about e-ink being a problem is a video I watched linked to by one of the ereader sites about a year ago showing someone who had converted an e-ink reader, I think it was a Kobo, to be used as a monitor for some computer. I don't recall what computer. The video showed it playing games. I don't recall if they were 3D games but there was definitely action and it was smooth and sharp and seemed to work well. As I recall he wrote his own drivers for the e-ink and there was some kind of explanation for why they improved things so much. I don't recall what that explanation was. Does anyone else remember seeing that? Anyway my post was really about LCD, not e-ink. Or really it was about scrolling, not screen technology. Barry

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