And the keyboard shortcut for primary clipboard paste (
Shift+Ins) is already gone from gtk.- https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/352 (closed)
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1070518 (open)
- There’s a nice Q/A on stackexchange: “Why does Shift+Insert paste from CLIPBOARD in some applications and PRIMARY in others?”
I am used to using middle mouse button to move canvas in both Krita and Inkscape. I know that it would be a silly default to just use it for movement, but countless missclicks in LibreOffice are reason good enough to be at least ocassionally frustrated over the default.
TIL: middle click is paste?
the middle click is “paste selection” not “paste clipboard”. those are 2 different things under *nix.
I personally use this constantly because you need the funtionality to quickly copy some text somewhere so often, it makes much more sense to not have to do: Select text, ctrl-c, move mouse, click text field, ctrl-v. much nicer to just: select text, move mouse, press middle button.
Thanks for the explanation. Actually a really nice feature.
oh that’s good
As a newgen (derogatory), Id appreciate this. Middle click has always been auto-scroll to me and it takes a good search to figure out how to disable it on a new installation.
Damn, the amount of comments that didn’t even read the full… title… Is reading comprehension getting this bad? Middle clic paste isn’t getting removed, just being opt-in rather than opt-out, yet a bunch of commenters are up in arms “time to ditch firefox”…
Historically speaking, the gnome devs have made “disabled by default” the first step towards removing a feature everyone uses.
Historically speaking, from what I’m reading is that gnome devs have a history of bad decisions birthing forks here and there “fine, I’ll do my own gnome, with blackjack and hookers” too, so I don’t know how much weigh such a decision can have to be perfectly honnest.
Eh, gnome is the default on some of the biggest distributions in a time when apparently lots of people are trying Linux for the first time so there’s an outsized opportunity for their usual shenanigans to have consequences for the rest of us.
Which has happened a bunch of times in the past.
Half of them probably will. People are like that.
Many times, I have seen people switch tech because something is missing or has changed…and they switch to something that also does not have it. Boggles my mind.
On the other hand, the alternative they switch to may have other features that they like. If a particular option was what kept them using some program/DE/OS, why stay if it’s gone?
Middle click paste sucks, I keep accideE&4nry!NAnY6Yfntally activating it in the middle of my documents which is bad when I have st6SFMzZkTR7!b^yuff like passwords copied and don’t notice, so good
KDE and Gnome already have toggles for it, though Gnome’s is in gnome-tweaks because Gnome hates exposed settings.
I’d support unifying behavior between toolkits and apps to provide users with a single point to set their preference, but I use this feature a hundred times a day. I’d also like it to remain the default; *nix desktops should have their own flavor instead of just copying Mac OS or Windows, and middle-click paste has been a part of that flavor for 40 years.
No hunter2 in there, this is fake.
Urgh, I use it at least 300 times a day.
From the other thread it seems it’ll just be disabled by default, and enableable if wanted
Same, and I have done so since the mid-90’s. It’s muscle memory at this point.
From the other thread it seems it’ll just be disabled by default, and enableable if wanted
Yeah, the title of this post seems to make that fairly clear. Still annoying though.
Maybe GNOME and Mozilla will consider a separate download/package where it is enabled by default, like gnome-desktop-middle-click-to-paste-enabled :D
never even knew that was a thing until a couple months ago, found it by accident. for 15-ish years I’ve just used a programmable mouse button for paste. still don’t know what i should do with that button now since middle click can paste.
Welcome to the future! … Or the past, not sure, but welcome.
Sure but youre probably aware that the vast majority of users dont, and for those users its a usability issue.
If you’re referring to touch screen users, then I don’t see how not having copy/pasting work when you plug in a mouse benefits them normally when they don’t have mice plugged in.
Calling it a ‘dumpster fire’ is a bit dramatic.
I think I’d happily describe the multiple clipboard situation in Linux as a dumpster fire…
It’s awkwardly ‘solved’ by clipboard managers merging clipboards but it’s still wonky. Even for somebody who has been using Linux as a desktop for many years I occasionally find myself annoyed by it.
At this point I think I’d prefer “copy” to be an affirmative action rather than something that is done automatically. It makes pasting over existing text much easier.
Yeah the 2 clipboards are a mess.
I actually once locked me out of ALL my accounts because of them.
I’m just lost why it’s so hard baked into x11 instead of configurable. I don’t want middle click to paste my selections. Yes I know x11 has some history and that it’s a feature, I do not like that feature. I will never like that feature. I want to copy manually and paste manually.
I don’t want my selections to be captured in a buffer.
For me it’his is one of the most useful features of Linux desktops and one of the main reasons I feel lost when I have to use Windows.
You won’t lose it. They’ll just turn it off by default for new users.
And then they’ll remove the feature citing telemetry.
And soon new users will never know, as each great Linux feature becomes hidden until the default desktop is a awful as all the rest.
I’ve used Linux for five years now and always wondered who had the idea to put paste on the middle mouse button and thought it was just some obscure convention from the past since it didn’t even paste what was in my clipboard. I never figured out that it was a different kind of paste where you just select text since it is never explained anywhere. I’d rather have new users not be put off by strange unexplained behavior.
Strange and unexpected?
When it doesn’t that is strange and unexpected. It’s relative.
This has been the Unix standard for 30 years implemented at MIT if I remember right.
Maybe a first use, explain, ask toggle. Instead of having to opt in.
They keep ruining Linux by dumbing it down!
Next thing you know we will be catering to mac users and all mouse buttons will do nothing.
As much as new windows users don’t know about ctrl+c, alt+f4, win+d… Those who don’t care won’t learn, those who do, will, it’s as simple as that.
They won’t though, because they will never know.
I am not a fan of dumbing everything down and hiding all the good stuff.
Is there a big popup at startup with windows that I somehow missed with all the shortcuts? Or did linux became sudenly less documented overnight? Why wouldn’t they know? Why do you think that users magicaly knows about shortcuts almost never referenced anywhere on windows but wouldn’t know about one sparking a debate among linux users with a toggle in settings directly referencing it?
Bravo Michael for continuing to farm bullshit drama with clickbait headlines on the most inane topics like “how my DE handles pasting text”
Does Gnome have a proper file picker yet?
You mean “once again”. They had one, but screwed it up. Who the fuck types in the file save dialog expecting it to perform SEARCH?
I use this DAILY!
I do too but it’s usually unintentional
HOW? In what manner of mouse using are you accidently clicking the paste button?
Two finger scroll on my touchpad and another finger lightly presses it turning it into a middle click paste
That’s interesting. It never does that with my touchpad. I wish it did though.
What desktop environment?
Niri, I think Hyprland did also
Having a mouse button being over-sensitive or being used to another middle clic behavior like windows’ autoscroll toggle will tend to do that. Having a fullscreen software using MMB for something else like panning and failling to fully capture the mouse on the current screen in a multi-monitor setup also.
Yes, please. Lets dumb down userinterfaces more. I think the right mouse button should go away next, people can’t rightclick on touchscreens anyway, and many are confused by the extra button.
/s. so many /s. thank good it’s open source, if they ever remove the setting to turn it back on, i can just put the code back in.
Ill be very happy when that day comes. Its one of the first things I need to search for how to disable every time i setup a new machine. To me, middle click has always been panning a canvas, and rectangle selecting text in editors. Its always super jarring having it paste text on new gnome machines
wait where does that get overridden? its going back a few years but when I was trying blender I used middle click paste and I don’t think I had any issues with it affecting whatever middle click does by default in blender
It’s one of those things you either use constantly or not at all. Activating the feature intentionally and having it fail is irritating, but activating it unintentionally because you didn’t know it was there could have serious consequences. I mean, I can even come up with cases where the wrong information being C&P’d accidentally into the wrong Web form could result in someone ending up dead.
Given the difference in stakes, “off by default” makes sense for this feature. I wouldn’t call it a dumpster fire, though—more like a relic of a more innocent time.
