So I got windows 8 and installed firefox, and my usual setting to ctrl + mousewheel wouldn't scroll a page at a time, as it did previously. I thought this was because windoze 8 sucks, but it's actually something changed between firefox 16 and 17.
My use for ctrl + scroll wheel is basically "scroll really fast when I'm on a really long page" so I don't have to do something stupid like drag the little box on the right side, or scroll the wheel forever and make my finger tired (what can I say, laziness, or efficiency, take your pick).
Firefox 16 had these settings(in about:config):
mousewheel.withcontrolkey.action
0 – scroll by lines (as set in mousewheel.*.numlinesof entry ^) of text in the browser window. Default behavior of the scroll wheel only (no keys used)
1 – scroll by pages (as set in mousewheel.*.numlinesof entry ^) of text in the browser window. Disabled by default
2 – move forward or backward in the browser history. Default behavior of SHIFT+Scroll Wheel
3 – zoom control. Default behavior of CTRL+Scroll Wheel
I'd set this to 1, which lets me scroll by page, because it's awesome to not have to scroll forever (think about my rage on every new install of firefox, when I want to "scroll really fast" and instead zoom in. Usually after doing this 1-3 times I finally track down my "scroll really fast" setting.).
In firefox 17, this setting is gone and we have, after thinking I had another reason to hate windows 8:
mousewheel.with_control.action;1
0 means "Do nothing"
1 means "Scroll contents"
2 means "Go
back or forward in the history"
3 means "Zoom in or out the contents"
(found this page that is overly confusing, and stupid: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Gecko:Mouse_Wheel_Scrolling)
So basically, they killed my "scroll by pages" setting. Confusion, and checking my mac which was still on FF16 (which worked fine with my previous setting) and updating it to FF17 which broke page scrolling, I figured either stupid people decided no one (including me) actually uses page scroll, so they could cut it, or there must be some dilapidated method of getting the same functionality.
Well, I messed with just the "y" of these settings first (default is 100) to things like 1 (maybe it means one page), 50, and 200, and all each of those did was "really slow scrolling" which is the opposite of what I wanted.
In my despair I set all of these to 1000:
mousewheel.with_control.delta_multiplier_x;1000
mousewheel.with_control.delta_multiplier_y;1000
mousewheel.with_control.delta_multiplier_z;1000
And I get my "scroll really fast" mode back. Definitely happy about that! It seems close enough to "one page" that I'll leave it, for now.
Less-interesting history stuff:
I don't recall exactly which version I first found the setting in, but I know for a fact it was an early version and it used to be built into the default UI preferences, the ability to pick different behaviors for holding down different modifier keys. I quickly decided I liked scrolling by page, and after the functionality was removed from the default UI I'm sure I raged for a while until finding the about:config stuff that has worked through version 16.
And yes, if you didn't use firefox when that was in the default UI, I will think I'm better than you. But you're free to not care (as I'm sure you don't, because I generally hate when other people as early adopters get special benefits / think they are better than me), but if you start using a "scroll really fast" modifier, I will repeal partially that opinion and decide you're okay.
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