Hey! I’m trying to replicate the scroll behavior o...

# compose

[Ivan Samborskii]

Hey! I’m trying to replicate the scroll behavior of a LazyColumn similar to what we see in the Gmail app:
1. Pull-to-refresh (PTR) works when the user drags the list with a finger (✅ works by default).
2. PTR indicator doesn’t show when the user scrolls using the mouse wheel (✅ achieved using pointerInput + awaitPointerEventScope to detect mouse input and disable PTR indicator).
3. Click-and-drag with a mouse should both scroll the list and trigger PTR — just like dragging with a finger (❌ currently stuck here).
I tried adding a draggable modifier so users can click-and-drag to scroll, but:
• There’s no momentum effect - if I scroll fast, the list stops instantly instead of continuing to glide.
• It doesn’t trigger PTR either.
Has anyone tackled something similar or knows how to achieve point (3)?
Any hints or directions would be appreciated 🙏

[Ivan Samborskii]

Current state:

MainActivity.kt

[Alex Vanyo]

Some notes on what's happening here: pull-to-refresh works via nested scrolling, and in Compose scrolling by clicking-and-dragging is disabled for mouse specifically

This differs from view behavior, where clicking-and-dragging with a mouse does scroll, but this is something we're taking a look at since clicking and dragging to scroll is not a common pattern on most desktop platforms - usually that will start selecting text instead.

Is there a hard requirement to match View behavior here, where clicking and dragging with a mouse does scroll (and as a result, cause pull-to-refresh?)

[Ivan Samborskii]

I wouldn’t call it a hard requirement, but matching the View behavior would be the simplest way to enable pull-to-refresh for data displayed in a LazyColumn. From what I understand, on desktop it’s more common to have a dedicated refresh button in a toolbar instead of relying on pull-to-refresh gestures. The challenge is that updating this pattern consistently across the entire app would be quite costly, and it’s also unclear what the UX should be when a mouse is connected to a small-screen device where there’s no practical space for a refresh button.

It’s possible my assumption about desktop UX isn’t entirely correct, and there may be a better pattern we should consider.