Can you disable rubber-band scrolling in OS X Lion?

Solution 1:

This is not an answer, but a hint in the right direction.

I have a non-multi touch trackpad and I rubber band scrolling is disabled in Lion for me. So this setting is linked to the multi-touch support.

Solution 2:

I found a hidden preference for disabling rubberband scrolling with strings /System/Library/Frameworks/*.framework/Versions/*/* 2> /dev/null | grep -iE '(rubb|elastic)' | grep -v ' ' | sort | uniq:

defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -bool false

It should take effect after reopening applications. It doesn't seem to affect web views like Safari windows though.

Solution 3:

For anyone else trying to figure this out, this may be of help:

Apple uses the word "elasticity" in reference to this part of rubber-band scrolling. Xcode's documentation includes more details.

Also, look into the content of "/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/AppKit".