Smart Scroll Troubleshooting

Smart Scroll

Troubleshooting

The number one fix is to download and install a new copy of Smart Scroll, then restart your Mac.

iCal's main calendar view doesn't scroll

Firefox scrolling "sticks"
Firefox: scrolling with option key
MS Word scrolling isn't reversed
MS Excel scrolling isn't reversed

Magic Mouse scrolling is jumpy
I can only scroll down (or up), not the other way
I can't get Grab Scroll to work

Smart Scroll won't work, it says "Could Not Start"
How do I remove Smart Scroll?
File Error - Could not complete registration
My Smart Scroll (for Mac OS 9) registration code is not accepted

iCal's main calendar view doesn't scroll

The main calendar view is different from all other views in iCal or other applications. Support for it will be added in a future version of Smart Scroll.

Firefox scrolling "sticks"

Turn off Firefox's Smooth Scrolling preference, under Advanced : General.
(Smart Scroll has no support for Firefox 3.6 on Mac OX 10.4 Tiger).

Firefox: scrolling with the option key down moves through the page history

Type about:config in Firefox's address bar, then change mousewheel.withaltkey.action to 0 to disable this, or set it to 2 to scroll history.

MS Word scrolling isn't reversed

With MS Word, it seems you need to wait until the document is fully loaded and then it works. For some unknown reason, even a small (2 pages) plain text document will keep the little icons at the bottom of the MS Word window spinning for about 15 to 25 seconds, and until that is done scrolling does not work correctly.

MS Excel scrolling isn't reversed

The workaround for getting scrolling to work in the correct direction is to open MS Excel's preferences window, select View and then uncheck Horizontal Scroll Bar and Vertical Scroll Bar.

Magic Mouse scrolling is jumpy

Turn off Momentum scrolling in the Magic Mouse preference pane (Thanks, Mike Davidson!)

I can only scroll down (or up), not the other way

Temporarily turn off Smart Scroll. If the problem continues then it's most likely caused by small debris in the scroll wheel/ball assembly.

The official procedure for cleaning the scroll ball of an Apple Mighty Mouse is given here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302417

I can't get Grab Scroll to work

If you have a mouse (or pen, trackball, etc.) with at least 2 buttons, you can use the 2nd one (or 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.) to grab and scroll. This button can still be used for clicking, i.e. if you don't drag the mouse from the moment the button is pressed down until the moment when you release it, that is if you just click the button without moving the mouse, it can be used for any function that requires only a click.

A good example is using the middle mouse button (referred to as button 3 in both the Smart Scroll preference pane and Apple's Keyboard & Mouse) for Grab Scroll. In Safari clicking a link with this button opens the link in a new tab or window. And if you click and drag with that button, you get the Grab Scroll function.

If you use a pointing device with a single button, then you can click and hold the button without moving the cursor until it changes to a hand, then let go. Then you can click and drag to scroll, as many times as you want, and when you want to stop scrolling and go back to using the button for clicking, just click (or hit any key).

With a single button, you can also use a key combination to trigger Grab Scroll. With the default keys, you can press and hold the shift key and tap the option key to activate Grab Scroll, and then you click and drag with the mouse to scroll the page. The shift key is held down for as long as you want Grab Scroll to remain active, and you can click and drag multiple times during that time. If you hold the option key down again, you get faster scrolling, if you let it go then you get normal speed scrolling. It sounds complicated when described like that, but it's very easy to do.

Smart Scroll won't work, it says "Could Not Start"

Please download and install the latest version of Smart Scroll, then restart your Mac.
On Mac OS X 10.6.1, if installation fails, click Install again: this will often work the second time.

If there is no progress, perhaps Smart Scroll's preferences are damaged or were migrated from a previous account. Please use the following steps:

Run Apple's Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities), select your startup disk and click Repair Disk Permissions.

Run the Smart Scroll installer to Remove Smart Scroll.

Delete any file with a name starting in com.marcmoini.SmartScrollX from your (account home)/Library/Preferences folder.

Run the installer again to Install Smart Scroll.

Restart your Mac. This is needed for the changes to take effect.

How do I remove Smart Scroll?

Please run the Smart Scroll installer, and click the Remove button. If you don't have the installer anymore, you can download a new one from this site.

File Error - Could not complete registration

Use the Finder's Get Info window to check the permissions for the /Library/Preferences folder. It should allow Read & Write for the admin group.

My Smart Scroll (for Mac OS 9) registration code is not accepted

Smart Scroll (for Mac OS X) is not an upgrade of the classic Smart Scroll for Mac OS 7, 8 and 9. Although Smart Scroll is named after the classic Smart Scroll, it is a completely new program with many new features, much in the same way that Mac OS X is not an upgrade of the classic Mac OS.