WebKit, previews, and scrolling
Wolf Rentzsch complains that BBEdit 7.1’s new Preview in BBEdit feature resets the scroll position every time the text it’s previewing changes. I’ve complained a couple of times that NetNewsWire’s weblog editor’s Preview window does the same thing. I wonder if it’s just a coincidence that both applications have the same problem or if maintaining the scroll position is simply very difficult or impossible with WebKit.
Dominik Wagner Said,
November 18, 2003 @ 10:35 pm
Have a look at SubEthaEdit. Here we faced the same problem and came up with a simple solution.
In fact it’s very easy with the WebKit. When you reload:
- Search for the correct ScrollView in the WebView
- remember its documentVisibleRect
- reload webview
on callback of the didFinishLoad:
- go to the correct ScrollView
- scrollRectToVisible
Voilá. We never would have thought of shipping SubEthaEdit with the WebPreview without this, because it’s quite unusable if you really want to work with it. It’s a shame BBEdit does not get it right, but well, this on of the reasons why we did SubEthaEdit in the first place.
Brent Simmons Said,
November 19, 2003 @ 10:53 am
Great tip! I needed that.