I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally pasted random private stuff from that goddamn middle click into WEB PAGES! Things that can read whatever text you type without having to explicitly submit anything. It’s a horrible thing for a new user to discover by accident. It’s such an unexpected feature to new users, and no one gets told about it, ever. You simply discover it by accident.
This is a good change, not having it on by default.
To all the haters of this idea, god forbid we make Linux less weird by default for people migrating from Windows.
All that said, I have learned to love select-to-copy and middle-click paste. Especially in the terminal.
Until this article I didn’t even know you could middle-click paste.
I’ve done it countless times by mistake in Discord when trying to scroll through a channel…
And that is the exact reason that was given in the gnome merge request. A user being able to accidentally paste a bunch of text they didnt even know they’d copied incredibly design.
I use middle click paste all the time, but the title is misleading and clickbaity. At least on GNOME’s side they’re discussing about disabling it by default, not completely. While this is annoying as long as the setting isn’t going away I’m fine with that and I understand the reasoning behind it.
Highlight->Middle paste has been my friend for decades now. Using it from SunOS in the 90-s to now has been a great feature. It’s the quickest way to copy and paste while I’m working fast with text or data entry.
I love having both clipboards be functional. The latest rounds of tools that have stopped being as compatible with it has been no end of problems in my workflow. I’ll copy with the keyboard, highlight some text and then paste both clipboards somewhere else.
No, using the keyboard here isn’t as fast, don’t bother making that argument, especially since ctrl-c means different things in different places on Unix style systems. Left hand stays home row while the right is forced to leave for the mouse since it’s a GUI.
I’ve had to deal with many tools that don’t respect keyboard cut/paste as well. Add in that some tools like putty or git bash on windows have ctrl-ins for paste?
Panning in CAD/design is usually click and hold middle or even a two button system (freecad), so trying to take a middle click for that isn’t buying uniformity.
The copy/paste world is already fractured enough. Keep the highlight/middle click working so we can go fast. I might be a dinosaur, but I’m a fast dinosaur.
reading these comments had me wondering if i was the only dinosaur around. lol
Don’t you touch my middle paste!
It would be fucking GNOME
Please don’t fuck a gnome, that’s very impolite
https://piefed.social/comment/9549428 They don’t want to disable it, just not make it on by default.
As a new migrating user looking to escape Bill Gates bullshit middle click paste was really confusing as I wanted middle click to remain consistent with screen panning, like panning a camera in blender or panning a canvas in gimp. Had to run through a few guides to disable middle click paste. I was surprised there wasn’t an option to enable/disable globally. Having an option will help other noobs like myself ditch Mac/windows for Linux and maintaining a familiar workflow.
This is one of the most useful things in Xorg, and prior to that in X11. If you (generic you, not anyone in particular here) don’t know about it it’s because you come from too long time on “my users are stupid” operating systems. It’s one of those things that once you have it in muscle memory you use it without even thinking about it.
Have I mis-pasted things? Yes. Have l pasted my password in an IRC channel? Yes. Would I stop using it because once every few months I make a mistake? Not at all.
Make it configurable, if you must, but leave us old timers work the way we have done for 30 years or more. There are already some software/ toolkits that disable it, so it is likely doable on a per-app basis.
Gratuitous “old man yells at clouds” rant: people should be forced to use a VT52 for one year before being granted GUI privileges, especially if you work with network hardware.
I’ll crawl back in my cave now.
It seems to me that having a mouse button defaultly paste the contents of the keyboard without the inclusion of a modifier key is just a bad idea.
As you said, you have pasted the wrong thing by accident because it’s one button press.
It just seems to me that by default pasting text should not be done by a single button press anywhere where your hand rests, like a mouse or the center of a keyboard. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be able to make it’s a configurable option, options are good, but it is not a good default.
This is one of the most useful things in Xorg, and prior to that in X11.
X11 is the last version of Xorg, not sure what you meant there.
Make it configurable, if you must, but leave us old timers work the way we have done for 30 years or more.
It was configurable and will stay configurable. The intent is to change the default.
Personally I support the change, but that might be because of my adhd making me click on the mouse wheel every 0.1 seconds.
It’s been some time… Before Xorg there was Xfree86, and before that the various implementations by the other Unix vendors. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I just had some misconceptions Xorg and X11. A few googling sessions later I’m all caught up though, I think.
Thank you for pointing that out in a calm way, on the internet.
It already is configurable, theyre just defaulting it to off. You will be able to turn it back on.
Damn I’m using that I hope they don’t remove it!
good (also they’re proposing a toggle that’s off by default)
Toggle is the nicest way to go for any feature that has stayed for a long time and has a dedicated user base.
Why is this a thing? I’ve never wanted a feature less…
Because it is awesome. So useful, and fast.
Middle paste, like many features, can be used to increase productivity. It’s normal. A better question would be why doesn’t Windows have it? It makes no sense to dumb down Linux to the level of Windows, just when people are leaving Windows because the user experience is so bad. Sure, make it an option in Settings. So people can continue to use it if they want. But there are many things worth utilising to save clicks on both Windows and Linux. Get to know them, if you want to get on with things.
I like my middle paste, so long as it isn’t gone for good I’m happy. Having 2 clipboards is also nice
But why? It hurts noone to have that enabled.
It messes with click to scroll, or just pastes things when all you want is to activate a window or something
Why would you activate widows with middle clicks? I’m fine having the toggle button, I’m not against that. I just dont see the harm in leaving it as paste as default.
Not sure but old habits die hard.
The only times something got pasted with middle click was accidental and then it doesn’t even take what’s in the clipboard, which is also annoying if you’re in the habit of selecting text randomly when you read.
It will hurt less disabled
Sure, if you grew with that feature and use it, it doesn’t hurt you. For others though, this is pain, it fucking hurts to keep accidentally paste stuff all over due to a legacy feature.
I’ve literally used Linux for over 5 years without ever noticing middle click did anything unusual until a colleagues showed me he could magically paste things with the mouse and I had to ask how he did it. Now I use it frequently and love the feature. I just don’t understand how you “keep accidentally paste stuff all over” when I’ve never heard any of my Linux friends and colleges ever mention anything about it and like me they were supprised and happy when I showed them the feature as well.
Accidental paste mostly happens to me on my multi monitor setup where a window use MMB for other stuff like panning and I accidentally move on another screen.
I occasionally use middle mouse paste, but I switched my partner over from Windows recently and they were used to scrolling by holding MMB and dragging which seems to be the default on Windows…
I expected there to be a toggle to turn off middle mouse paste but there just wasn’t. I had to go into multiple different places to disable it and enable autoscroll for all their apps. I ended up installing a hacky tool that would just clear the clipboard whenever MMB was pressed.
If anything can make this process easier, I’m all for it.
There’s nothing to discuss. Just disable that shit already.
I might switch away from GNOME if this passes. I’ve lost enough QoL features/UI degradations already with no option to go back.
