# Plug-in to make wider sliders?



## John Little (Aug 8, 2014)

It's a small but persistent annoyance that the sliders on the sides of the Workspace are so narrow. It's easy to click outside them and make the panels disappear, or just not land on the slider. Are there plug-ins that allow one to adjust features of Workspace like this, or change the colors? The slider region is also so similar in color to its surroundings; a bit more contrast would help accurate mousemanship.

John


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## davidedric (Aug 8, 2014)

No answer to your actual question,  I fear, but I have found that using a graphics tablet rather than a mouse makes picking up sliders, as well as most other tasks, a lot easier. 

Dave


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## IanGains58 (Aug 8, 2014)

Hi John. I'm using LR4.4 but I'm assuming that this feature works irrespective of version - you can drag the panel border to the left to widen it which widens all of the sliders in the Develop module.


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## clee01l (Aug 8, 2014)

The problem is most apparent in small H-Rez displays. LR adapts different size icon buttons for hi-rez displays, however, other controls like sliders and text are determined by the API used to generate the control. OSX controls are display sensitive and retina displays have slightly larger controls. I don't think Microsoft has updated their Windows API to account for this.   I have a 27" 2560X1440 iMac and a 13" (2560X1600) The iMac is not retina and the controls are small and difficult to read.  On the 13" rMBP, the pixel density is about twice that of the iMac and yet the controls are larger and easy to read.


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## RikkFlohr (Aug 8, 2014)

The landing area to the right of the slider where the numerical value of the slider is shown is also a large scrubby slider. Mouse over the area with the number and rectangular area will be highlighted. This entire area of the highlighted area is a slider. You will see the cursor change into a hand with double arrow. Click and drag right or left.  It is an easier target for some people to dragging directly on the slider.


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## John Little (Aug 8, 2014)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The slider I'm talking about is shown here:






Maybe "slider" is the wrong term. But one can see that the very faint gray line separating the "slider" column from the space to the right is hard to see and it's easy to click to its right.

John


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## John Little (Aug 8, 2014)

The penny dropped: They are called "scroll bars". Sorry for the confusion.


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## clee01l (Aug 8, 2014)

John Little said:


> The penny dropped: They are called "scroll bars". Sorry for the confusion.


 Scroll bars and other window controls are a part of the Windows API that all  software developers must use when writing code for Windows.  There is another functionally equivalent API provided by OSX for Mac apps.  It has been a while since I coded programs for Windows.   I don't think the application developer can override the width. The default width may be a function of the screen size and IIRC defaults to 17px  If you have a HiRez display your pixels will be smaller than on a standard display.

So, the place to complain is with Microsoft.  Your complaint is probably valid if you have a Hi-Rez display. If you search the Windows user forums you will probably encounter this scroll bar topic.


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## John Little (Aug 9, 2014)

clee01l said:


> Scroll bars and other window controls are a part of the Windows API that all  software developers must use when writing code for Windows.  There is another functionally equivalent API provided by OSX for Mac apps.  It has been a while since I coded programs for Windows.   I don't think the application developer can override the width. The default width may be a function of the screen size and IIRC defaults to 17px  If you have a HiRez display your pixels will be smaller than on a standard display.



I don't mean to be contentious, but the scroll bars on Lightroom are about half as wide, on several different monitors, as those on any other program I use. Is that what others see as well? If so, it suggests that the Lightroom developer has been able to override the width, and if so it might be possible for a plug-in developer to compensate. It wouldn't be a problem except that the edge of the scroll bar is almost invisible, as seen in the screen shot I showed above. But maybe I'm the only one that this bothers!

John


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## clee01l (Aug 9, 2014)

As I said, _"It has been a while since I coded programs for Windows. I don't think the application developer can override the width. The default width may be a function of the screen size and IIRC defaults to 17px"_   Maybe you can alter the scrollbar widths.  I don't write application code anymore so I've lost track of the API features. And maybe there are different attributes for the Windows API control versus those in the OSX API.  My scrollbars appear to be the same width on my iMac for LR, Pages, Chrome and Mail.


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