Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

geekosupremo · 2016-09-28 18:22:21

I've been "plauged" with an odd behavior while using BL in a VirtualBox on Windows, currently my most common use case.

When I turn the scrollwheel quickly I am often swapped to the other desktop and then I am scrolling the window that is in view. This will happen while the mouse pointer is in the center of the app, for instance Firefox. If I turn the scroll wheel slower I'm more likely to remain in the window I want.

Why is this odd?

When I use a different DE like Xfce, the scroll wheel is much more predictable in what it will do.
- out of window frame? change desktop
- in window frame? scroll the document in view

This maybe a limitation of the packaged drivers in VirtualBox, but I am not sure, since when I boot up Xubuntu or even just Debian Jessie with something other than OpenBox the scroll wheel performs as expected.

Any one else seen this behavior?

Horizon_Brave · 2016-09-28 19:07:46

Heh, funny you mention this, I experience the same thing, but never actually cared to bring it up or look into it. Please someone (looking at your Hoas) fact check me but it may has something to do with our X config params. Meaning that the scroll function is mapped to a certain mouse click function, I'm honestly not sure where to go about changing this..

Also if you haven't already, try installing the Virtual Guest additions add on for Virtualbox. I noticed that it provides a lot of functionality and key quirks that weren't present on a clean V.B install..

Check out: Guest Install for Deb.

Last edited by Horizon_Brave (2016-09-28 19:09:49)

geekosupremo · 2016-09-28 21:00:13

:face palm: I completely forgot about this package. I'm trying it now.

----

The package is installed.

There does seem to be some improvement. When I quickly scroll, I have to do so very quickly to get the weird behavior.

So I'm still on the hunt for a way to make this behavior predictable.

Last edited by geekosupremo (2016-09-28 22:00:07)

Horizon_Brave · 2016-09-28 22:05:12

lol, jeez how fast do you scroll through pages?!
Hmm there may be some tweaks to be done in the X settings, but again I'm not quite sure how do go about it..

damo · 2016-09-28 22:13:42

You should be able to set scroll behaviour with xinput.

ohnonot · 2016-09-29 05:36:07

i am also "plauged" by this (vm or not), but i always chalk it up to lack of hand coordination.
in other words, my hands and fingers are too jerky.
you can always disable the scrollwheel-desktop-changing feature in rc.xml.

geekosupremo · 2016-09-29 15:20:41

Horizon_Brave wrote:

lol, jeez how fast do you scroll through pages?!

A fair question (even if not entirely serious)! I'm often scrolling large documentation pages, since my Linux knowledge is minimal, and the section I need isn't always where I land in the document.

Granted there is "in page search" with crtl + F. But once I find the right section sometimes I'm going from the definition of something to it's example and back again very quickly.

Damo wrote:

You should be able to set scroll behaviour with xinput.

Ah! Thank you for the pointer! I'll check it out.

ohnonot wrote:

i am also "plauged" by this (vm or not), but i always chalk it up to lack of hand coordination.
in other words, my hands and fingers are too jerky.
you can always disable the scrollwheel-desktop-changing feature in rc.xml.

Also worth looking into. I do like the option to quickly change desktops while my hand is on the mouse, so that's one of the reasons I'm trying to see if I can better control the behavior.

-----

I am beginning to see a trend. This behavior seems to exhibit more frequently when I'm at the bottom of a ... frame for lack of a better phrase.

Example: When editing this post, the BB software has the edit area scrolled to the end of the text. When I turned the scroll wheel to pull the preview button into view the desktop switched. I did this a couple of times. I donno if that means anything but it is one of the more consistant behaviors I've come across.

Last edited by geekosupremo (2016-09-29 15:24:53)

ohnonot · 2016-09-30 07:26:57

It might be a limitation with openbox' hotkey functionality - when no other app claims the mousewheel scrolls, it takes over.
I don't really see a real solution here.

Fwiw, I'd recommend using page up / page down for scrolling through large documents.

#1 2016-09-28 18:22:21

Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

#2 2016-09-28 19:07:46

Re: Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

#3 2016-09-28 21:00:13

Re: Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

#4 2016-09-28 22:05:12

Re: Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

#5 2016-09-28 22:13:42

Re: Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

#6 2016-09-29 05:36:07

Re: Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

#7 2016-09-29 15:20:41

Re: Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

#8 2016-09-30 07:26:57

Re: Weird Scroll Wheel behavior When Running BL in VirtualBox

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