Let me start with my OS, Linux Mint 17.3 MATE Desktop, 64 bit. This is also identified as Ubuntu 14.x (I forgot the right-end digits). I have upgraded Firefox to 47.0.

I have an issue with how the scroll bar in Firefox behaves:

Open a long page that has enough length to shorten up the vertical slider to be no more than about 1/4 of the height of the viewport. Narrowing the viewport will also make the scrolled page longer.

If I click at the bottom of the trough, I end up at the end of the page. If I click somewhere in the middle of the trough, I am positioned somewhere in the middle of the page. And if I click at the top of the trough I am at the top of the page.

In everything else with a scroll bar, I scroll down a screen at a time no matter where below the slider I click, be it a long text document in the Text Editor (gedit or Pluma), a long image in the GIMP and so on. I haven't tested a long document yet in the LibreOffice Writer.

Someone posted on another forum that this happens both in Firefox and in LibreOffice, and he is using the Cinnamon Desktop. Work-around found there is to shift-click and get the page-down behavior in Firefox, and that does work for me in MATE.

I am using the Mint-X Brown theme, and I can get the up- and down-arrow buttons at the ends of the scrollbar by customizing controls and using the Redmond selection.

Now, I am tooling along, using the bottom arrow button to move a few lines at a time, as I read and my mouse drifts off-target. Boom! In one click I have been sent clear to the bottom.

Is there a way where I can reverse Firefox behavior such that I normally scroll down one screen at a time, and if I WANT to shoot to the bottom, I can shift-click the bottom of the trough?

If I am tooling along and my mouse then drifts off-target, I don't go BOOM! quite so badly --just one screenful down per click, something I can quickly recover from.

I saw some other posts in my research.

This one mirrors my question, and is where I found the Shift key + click method:
Super User -- How to control scroll bar behavior in Cinnamon?
http://superuser.com/questions/10938...or-in-cinnamon

This one had to do with a complex editing job to bring back the scroll buttons:
Linux Questions, How to enable scrollbar arrow buttons in Linux Mint v17.3?
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-a-4175580868/

Linux North discusses vertical scrollbars in Linux Mint 17, using a change of themes to fix LibreOffice:
https://linuxnorth.wordpress.com/201...linux-mint-17/

Then this in Ubuntu Forums, Aggravating Scrollbar Behavior:
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2292585

Posted a year ago and no definite answer given for the issue.

These are search results I got before posing my question here on LQ.

Thank you.

(I need to update my sigmature: IBM System X server, 64 bit, dual core processor and 4 gig of memory.)
I have had as many as 42 tabs open at once on Firefox.

Seems to be the new default behaviour of GTK+3:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/29598...llbar-behavior

Did it behave as expected before you upgraded to Firefox 47 with 42 tabs open?

I recommend defaults.

About there being 42 tabs open at once: I have NEVER had the performance capability this 64-bit IBM server is showing me, this being my first time running 64 bits. My experience has always been to find it necessary to kill unresponsive scripts and minimize the number of processes running and clear cache constantly to keep a YouTube video playing on my 32-bit machines.

To answer your question, my 32-bit install of Linux Mint Cinnamon with MATE added, on my laptop, is running Firefox 44.0.2 and does not have the scroll issue I have here with FF 47. I do not recall that being an issue early on with this 64-bit install before I brought in the latest Firefox upgrade.

I did try something here: Shift-click the down scroll arrow button gives me the same effect as clicking without the shift, but if I accidentally slide the mouse into the trough, my shift-click will advance one screen at a time. Saves the hassle I am experiencing with BOOM! all the way to the bottom.

It might be wise of me to reinstall the OS on here

Just an update, I did put the live dvd in with the idea of reinstalling, but brought up Firefox 42.0 and I have no issue with that browser on the DVD.

I was just going to wipe the file system and reinstall, leaving Home untouched, but then I realized the sound card is set up the way I want it, and I'd have to rethink all of that again. I will just use the shift key if I want to scroll Firefox. That is my one big sticking point on this installation.

If time comes that there is more reason to reinstall, then I will have to restructure my sound card setup and I will not use Firefox 47.

Cepheus11, I tried the settings.ini offered in your referenced thread, and it did not work for me. I visited the ,config folder, entered the gtk-3.0 folder, brought up the Terminal and used to create the file. And that opened up in Wine's Notepad.

I tend to agree with one of the posters in that forum about whose bright idea was it to foul something up that was working for years.

It's not ",config" (with a comma) but ".config" with a dot.

Common miscue of mine, to mistype a comma for a period. I may have been right with the code, just wrong reciting the code in my post. Then again, it is worth another do-over and see if I miscued in the code. Yjr spelling of "the" as "rgw" -- "Yjr" one key right, "rgw" one key left! Grrr... Thanks for the tip.

Can I just save my.mozilla folder, remove Firefox from my computer, put the DVD in and go back to Firefox 42? I was just thinking of the myriad of things to redo if I reinstall the OS just because of Firefox 47.

Thank you.

Just a note that adding

to a newly created ~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini, then logging out and in again, worked perfectly for me using Linux Mint 17.3 MATE.

Firefox now scrolls as it did with Gtk2.

You should try listing the contents of the above file Larry, because I don't think you created it correctly.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank YOU! Either I did settings,ini (comma instead of period) or I got the contents wrong in settings.ini, and it did not work. Now it does work. I will mark this as SOLVED. I used Wine Notepad the first time around, did maybe Windows line endinngs confuse my issue....... Now Pluma is the default text editor for .ini files.