Excel scroll bar bug

[Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac][excel2008] has an irritating bug where only the active document window has scroll bars. If a second document is open, or even if you only have one document but Excel is not the front-most application then the window has no scroll bars and ignores scroll messages from the mouse. This happens in Excel 12.2.0 (and a couple of earlier revisions behave the same).

Excel scroll bars in inactive window

Excel scroll bars in an inactive window

The correct behaviour is for [scroll bars in inactive windows to be drawn in an inactive state][hig] and to allow scrolling even when the window is not front-most.

I rather like Excel. I thought it was the least crashy of the assorted junk Microsoft released as Office 4.2 for Mac back in 1993. Fuck me that was a pile of shit.

[excel2008]: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Excel2008/
[hig]: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/XHIGWindows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-TPXREF26

2 thoughts on “Excel scroll bar bug

  1. Rob

    I think Microsoft would call that a “feature”, not a bug – it seems to be done deliberately as the Windows version of Excel does the very same thing. Annoys the hell out of me!

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