Missing Scroll Bars
 

Hello, anyone have any idea where the vertical and Horzt scroll bars went in upgrades to most of the distros ? Example: terminal in CentOS no issue with scroll bars, left and bottom and no issues in MS Windows...just linux after updates applied. thanks

All appears well in CentOS 7.5 with Cinnamon DE.

Where are you seeing a problem? You say "Linux" - but that's very vague. Which distribution and which desktop?

It's become common in various applications and DEs to "simplify" their UI, likening it to handheld devices' typical dearth of screen space. Disappearing scrollbars seems to be a common misfeature, which NAICT has its roots in GTK3 but has spread wildly. Luckily for some of us we stick with what works, meaning avoiding the latest bloatware and the bling that goes with it. Pick another DE and you might see scrollbars return automatically. In others, you can get them back through desktop settings. Without your mentioning anything more than CentOS terminal, it's hard to say much more about scrollbars.

As a general rule for gtk3, you can re-add scrollbars by editing your theme's CSS file and adding:

If you don't want to edit the theme file in /usr/share/themes, you can create an overriding theme file in your home directory. For example, for the Mint-X theme in Mint 19:

and then populate that file with:

^ shouldn't this be possible also via ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css?

Ah, so intended to affect all gtk3 applications, not only those using a certain theme? It could well do.

Hopefully someone, perhaps the OP, will test it and report back. Certainly, I tried quite a few things before landing on my solution above, so I can't remember why I decided that the mod had to be applied on a theme-by-theme basis. I would love to be proved wrong.

~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css WFM. What I don't understand is why I've never been able to find a global solution e.g. (/etc/gtk-3.0/gtk.css) that works for all system users. /etc/skel/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css should work for new users, but wouldn't be expected to help existing.

Needing to edit config files is not user-friendly, but then I've never found GTK intended to be user friendly, instead a scourge needed mainly due to indispensable Mozilla products' lack of QT support.

For any non-native English speakers, just a wee note that WFM means "works for me".

/usr/share/themes/Mint-X/gtk-3.0/gtk.css doesn't do that?

Two problems with that:
1-not global: only a single theme is affected
2-system admin's global custom configs belong in /etc/; /usr/ changes are subject to usurpation by package management system updates

Thanks all for responding. I've tried several destro's and all have the same issue...no bottom, side scroll bars. A real pain dragging bars without arrows around.

Also wondering who pulled the plug on this feature...seems outrageous to remove something so simple and useful.

We are looking to dump M/S Windows but after showing the the new Firefox browser to users, Linux is now off the table for the time being or until this issue is fixed...so sad.

So have you tried editing the CSS as suggested above?

you're not the only one.
https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012...ing-in-threes/

Thanks all. I think someone asked me if I have tried any of these suggestions yet and the answer is no.

The changes suggested appear to be above my expertise in messing around with the system.

It would appear the the people who created this issue didn't give what they did much thought, wish they had, the result of this change is a real pain in the "A".

Perhaps those people will revisit this issue in the future.

you haven't specified in which applications you are missing scroll bars.

my guess is you are talking about gtk3, and maybe web pages.

you could try different themes. <= this

for some applications, different toolkit alternatives exist, usually Qt.