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[madbrain]

My vision has been declining as of late. Unfortunately, I have got a rare disease that is not fully correctable with lenses. I'm now using a larger mouse pointer in Windows.

For the same reason, I also struggle with navigating my media collection in JRiver Media Center, in particular, scrolling through it.
I found the option to in Tree & View -> List -> Enlarge scrollbars on mouse over.

This unfortunately remains problematic, because one needs to first place the mouse within the small scroll bar area. With a large mouse pointer, this is not easy to do. But even if one succeeds, there is also a delay before the scroll bar converts to a larger one, and if you start scrolling before that delay passes, the scroll bar does not get enlarged. And if you haven't clicked, but move your mouse slightly, it reverts to a narrow scroll bar.

I think there should be an option to make this permanent, rather than mouseover. I realize there are several media applications that use custom smaller scroll bars (Qobuz comes to mind, unfortunately), and JRiver is not alone in doing that, but this is still really problematic. None of us are getting any younger, and this can affect everyone.

I know from searches that this change has been requested in the past. Hopefully, this is not too much work.

If this could be enabled through a skin, I would be happy to use one, but it doesn't appear to be possible.

While they are not as pretty, and would look out of place with the rest of MC, the default Windows scroll bars are more functional, and many frequently-used apps such as web browsers use them. Having a "bland" skin that uses these instead of the custom bars would  also be fine, if possible.

I have tried Panel, which allows using Media Center through a browser, and thus displays the larger system scrollbars. Unfortunately, Panel exposes a small subset of the native application's functionality, and is not a substitute for it.

[markf2748]

There is also an "intermediate" approach to scroll bars which is used by many modern applications, including Windows 11 (Explorer, Settings, etc.), FireFox, and many many others.  Namely, the scroll bar enlarges and becomes more visible when the mouse hovers anywhere along the scroll bar track.  As you point out, currently MC requires the mouse to actually hover over the scroll bar handle in order to trigger the enlargement, which can be a challenge when the length of the handle becomes very short for a narrow inactive handle.

I have been meaning to request updating to a "modern" scroll bar for a while now, but I also support your request for an accessibility option to always have a large scroll bar (better yet:  scroll bar size options).  They should both be possible.

Note: Scroll bar appearance and response can vary significantly with different skins (View > Skin) and sizes (View > Size), but that does not invalidate these suggestions.

[madbrain]

There is also an "intermediate" approach to scroll bars which is used by many modern applications, including Windows 11 (Explorer, Settings, etc.), FireFox, and many many others.  Namely, the scroll bar enlarges and becomes more visible when the mouse hovers anywhere along the scroll bar track. As you point out, currently MC requires the mouse to actually hover over the scroll bar handle in order to trigger the enlargement, which can be a challenge when the length of the handle becomes very short for a narrow inactive handle.

Until yesterday when I turn on the setting in MC, I don't believe I had ever seen scrollbars that enlarge when hovering over in any application. Highlighted, yes. I have been using Firefox since it was released, and its Mozilla and Netscape predecessors before that, and have never seen it.

I have avoided switching to Windows 11. I gave it a try, but found it to be too schizophrenic of a UI. As if having half the settings in one place (control panel) and the other in settings wasn't bad enough, now the context menus have different modes, too. The default ones look pretty, but are so truncated as to be useless. An extra step is required to get the useful, long version. And then it looks completely out of place with the rest of the UI. I did not test Win11 long enough to notice these enlarging scroll bars.

I have been meaning to request updating to a "modern" scroll bar for a while now, but I also support your request for an accessibility option to always have a large scroll bar (better yet:  scroll bar size options).  They should both be possible.

Note: Scroll bar appearance and response can vary significantly with different skins and sizes (View > Size), but that does not invalidate these suggestions.

Thanks for your support. I wish Windows allowed per-app adjustable dpi - that would go a long way to solving these problems. With identical dpi setting, some apps are perfectly usable, while others are not.

I had never tried any of the non-default skins. Turns out the very first one listed, Aruba, has much larger scroll bars. I think I can live with it for now.

One thing I just did was setup a launcher for Magnify.exe in the Kensington works app for my 4 button trackball. I almost never use the top 2 buttons. The top left one now launches magnifier. That is a bit awkward to use, but better than not being able to see. I wish I could set the top right button to disable magnifier, but magnify.exe doesn't have a command-line argument for that, and Kensington works also doesn't allow passing any arguments either. Maybe a custom executable could do the trick.