Scrolling vs Paging?

[MGlitch]

Scrolling can work on e-ink, but you'd still use up the battery faster or make it so the difference between scrolling and paging was moot.

Eink only really draws power when the screen refreshes, which it would need to every time you scroll. So lets say you read 10 lines of text and then scroll and repeat. My H2O has about 31 lines of text, however I use what most would consider faily small font size, and I've made my line spacing and margins optimized for getting the most lines per screen, so lets call it 25 lines. To read the same amount of text, you're refreshing the screen 2.5x as much as I am.

The issue isn't about smooth scrolling, though if it were -true- scrolling where you bring a line up and each part of that line must pass through every pixel between point a and b, then you're looking at even more battery drain. My thoughts are for a scrolling system that moves the text in chunks, so you have lines 1-10, when you scroll line 1 goes away and line 2 takes its place as a block of text.

As to scrolling on LCD, I can't say. I don't read books on my iPhone, nor any tablet I've used. I dislike using LCD for extended reading.

[Cinisajoy]

Barryem,
I was referring to manual scrolling.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by barryem

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 wasn't referring to auto-scrolling at all.

I'm glad everyone seems to have choices that make them happy, but I don't like auto- or manual-scrolling for reading (and not for lack of trying). I don't mind it for browsing short articles/posts on the internet, but when reading a novel, I want paging.

[Dazrin]

When reading on the computer (where I have access to a mouse really) I prefer scrolling since I have good control with the scroll wheel and since I like to highlight paragraphs as I go to help me keep track of where I am on the large screen. When reading on a phone or e-reader I prefer paging. Scrolling without an external device to do it with would be annoying. I don't want auto-scrolling at all though. Some things and some paragraphs I read faster than others and having to mess with a scrolling speed all the time is annoying.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Scrolling can work on e-ink, but you'd still use up the battery faster or make it so the difference between scrolling and paging was moot.

Eink only really draws power when the screen refreshes, which it would need to every time you scroll. So lets say you read 10 lines of text and then scroll and repeat. My H2O has about 31 lines of text, however I use what most would consider faily small font size, and I've made my line spacing and margins optimized for getting the most lines per screen, so lets call it 25 lines. To read the same amount of text, you're refreshing the screen 2.5x as much as I am.

The issue isn't about smooth scrolling, though if it were -true- scrolling where you bring a line up and each part of that line must pass through every pixel between point a and b, then you're looking at even more battery drain. My thoughts are for a scrolling system that moves the text in chunks, so you have lines 1-10, when you scroll line 1 goes away and line 2 takes its place as a block of text.

As to scrolling on LCD, I can't say. I don't read books on my iPhone, nor any tablet I've used. I dislike using LCD for extended reading.

I think you probably have a good point about battery life with e-ink. When I think of scrolling it's either line oriented as it would be on an MS-Dos system, or pixel oriented as on a GUI system, which they all are today.

Obviously pixel oriented scrolling would be a huge power waster. It would mean redrawing the entire screen a dozen or so times for each line scrolled.

Line oriented scrolling wouldn't be quite so bad but would be pretty ugly. I recall some of the Palm Pilot apps offering line oriented scrolling as an option and I never understood why.

So yeah, that probably would make scrolling unrealistic on e-ink.

Barry

[cedhax]

Originally Posted by barryem

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.

It sounds like that you don't use iOS devices. I use both Android and iOS devices for reading. iBooks, the standard reading app from Apple, has (manual) scrolling option. So does BookMaster, the best reading app IMHO.

To me, paging and (manual) scrolling are complementary ways to read, depending on a number of factors, including screen size, font size, text or image, short or long, etc. If the hardware and software (app) are capable of supporting both, why not?

In the ancient days, people read in papyrus, parchment or bamboo scrolls. Paper books came later. Today we have computers acting as ebook readers. Technology has always played a crucial role, and historically the limiting role. (Remember that terminals connected to mainframes were once the state-of-the-art technology in mid 20-th century.)

There is no one right way to read. But there is one right way to write a good reading app--give the users a reasonable range of choices that the underlying hardware is capable of. To page or to scroll is definitely within this range of modern iOS and Android devices.

...
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.
...

Let's focus on modern day non e-ink devices for now. Compared with animation intensive games, or playing video clips, the CPU requirement for reading apps in general is not an issue. However, there is a place that affects the user's perception of response time--realistic, fluid, following-your-finger-back-and-forth type of page curl animation (as exemplified by iBooks and BookMaster apps). This kind of page turn effect, though performed only once a while, sets the peak CPU (really the GPU) usage during a typical reading session.

For a while after iBooks first popularized the page curl effect on the first iPad in 2010, there was no Android devices capable of such smooth animation. Clearly, paging (with true page curl animation effect) is more "expensive" than (manual or auto) scrolling. But today we no longer have to be constrained by this technology limitation. Choose a device and an app that gives you the freedom of choice you deserve. Then you can switch the reading mode--paging or scrolling--as frequently as it suits you.

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

Since you explicity asked for it, do you enjoy my refutation?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

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

This. With scrolling, I usually go too far which gets me out of a book faster than that split second where the screen changes, as I'll have to refind the spot where I was...

[Tarana]

I really like scrolling when reading from my Itouch. Otherwise you are constantly making page turns. I never use the feature on my tablet unless I'm laid up in bed. Again, this is due to paging being difficult.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by cedhax

It sounds like that you don't use iOS devices.

I use Android. I have an Ipad Mini but I don't use it much. I don't think I've ever used it for reading. I used to have an Ipod Touch that I read a little on but at that time the reading apps were fairly primitive.

There is no one right way to read. But there is one right way to write a good reading app--give the users a reasonable range of choices that the underlying hardware is capable of. To page or to scroll is definitely within this range of modern iOS and Android devices.

Agreed!

Since you explicity asked for it, do you enjoy my refutation?

Yep! nicely done. Thanks!

[leebase]

Great topic. I like both. For reading the web, I scroll. For reading books, I page.

I USED to page with my bible app but recently switched to scrolling. Unlike a Novell, I'm much more apt to "scroll back" to get some context, then scroll forward. I don't know precisely why I like scrolling for reading the web and my bible, and Twitter, etc. But I do.

However, I definitely do NOT want to scroll ebooks. Scrolling takes more time and effort, IMHO than paging. Why that only bothers me with books is a mystery. Maybe it is because ebooks are books according to my brain and I never scrolled books.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by theducks

What he said!

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


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

Not quite. When I scroll I'm actually looking at the same section of the screen. My eyes move less. I never lose my place.

[LadyKate]

Paging is much easier for me on my android. I will occasionally scroll back if I want to double check something or make sure I haven't somehow missed a line but I have my moonreader set up that a touch to the screen (anywhere other than dead center or upper right hand) will page forward. (upper right hand goes back a page, dead center brings up menu)

I find it more natural to read by paging forward. Scrolling would be more similar to reading a newspaper, moving the paper up to read continue reading. In the future, it might be interesting to see what the habits and preferences of those who learn to read with ebooks available as children prefer.

[Joykins]

Maybe it's just me, but scrolling gives me major eyestrain on a tablet. As in, I find it difficult to read facebook on the tablet because it requires scrolling. It isn't as bad on the computer, given that the scrolling is less because there is more text on the screen at a time. I'm talking about my right eye turning temporarily bleary, for both close and distance vision, until I rest it a while. I would prefer everything paged, actually.