scroll-axis-lock: auto
No movement yet.
v153 · scroll-axis-lock
Panning a map
The target is down and to the right. On a map that is one movement. Under axis locking it is two, because the gesture commits to whichever direction it started in — and the path each pane traces is drawn below it, so you can see the corner appear.
Get from Depot to Site 9
Both maps start at the depot in the top-left. Scroll each one to the site in the bottom-right in a single continuous movement, and watch the trail.
scroll-axis-lock: none
No movement yet.
The trail is the scroll offset over time, plotted in the map's own coordinates. Straightness is reported as the ratio of the path's length to the straight-line distance between its ends: 1.0 is a perfect diagonal, and 1.41 is the two-leg L that a locked gesture produces.
Why an L is worse than it sounds
The extra distance is not really the cost. The cost is that the gesture stops being a single act of aiming: you point at the destination, the view goes sideways, and you have to stop, notice, lift, and start again in the other direction. On a phone that is two swipes and a moment of confusion for every diagonal move — on a seating chart, a spreadsheet, or a zoomed photograph, that is most moves.
Locking earns its place on documents, where a slightly crooked swipe should not drift the text sideways. The property exists so a two-dimensional surface can opt out without arguing about the default.