How to get "smooth scrolling" system-wide?

Question

I found an amazing extension for Google Chrome called SmoothScroll. It makes scrolling webpages extraordinarily visually appealing, just like in opera.

I was wondering if I could find something like this for Ubuntu that can be applied system wide so that I can experience this on any scrollbar I use.

Solution 1

Although it's a bit old, i found out that gnome 3.4 supports smooth scroll

You will also see improvements to the building blocks that our applications have been made with. This includes smooth scrolling, refreshed user interface components, a much refined visual theme and application menus.

library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.4/

Does anybody knows how to enable it?

Solution 2

Firefox does have a smooth scroll option too.

But as far as I know this is implemented in those applications (and AFAIK only for the browser window, not for other widgets?), not in standard Gtk widgets (or Xorg, or whatever), so no system-wide setting exists (that I know of).

Solution 3

No system-wide setting as applications need to handle XInput 2.1 events themselves or use a toolkit that does it automatically.

Gnome/GTK3 applications handle smooth or pixel-perfect scrolling by default.

Firefox requires setting an environment variable MOZ_USE_XINPUT2 (echo 'export MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1' >> ~/.xsessionrc).

Chromium introduced it recently in version 54 and you will need to install it from an a source that is more up-to-date than Ubuntu's repositories.

KDE/QT apps apparently have support though I haven't tried.

Electron-based apps (such as Atom) don't have any support for XInput 2.1 events yet.

Comments

[Tim Rogers]

While this isn't the absolute answer, at least it shows that it is available.

[Tim Rogers]

Wow this is an old question, I haven't been using Ubuntu since 2013. Also note however that MOZ_USE_XINPUT2 only works in Firefox when you have e10s enabled. This can be checked in about:support under Multiprocess Windows. Some extensions may not officially support e10s so you either have to disable the extension or set "browser.tabs.remote.force-enable" to true under about:config (however this isn't recommended).