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Posted
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BeauHD
ry 05, 2026 @06:20PM
from the oops-I-pasted-again dept.
Both GNOME and Firefox are considering disabling middle-click paste by default, arguing it's a confusing, accident-prone X11 relic that dumps clipboard contents without warning. Phoronix reports: Amerge request for GNOME's gsettings-desktop-schemas was opened this weekend to disable the primary-paste functionality by default that allows using the middle mouse button for pasting. Jordan Petridis argued in that GNOME pull request that middle-click paste is an "X11'ism" and that the setting could remain for those wanting to opt-in to enabling the functionality [...].
The gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-enable-primary-paste true command would be a way of restoring the primary paste (middle click paste) for those desiring the functionality. The decision over the default has been tasked to GNOME's design team for consideration.
Separately, Mozilla is also considering disabling middle mouse button paste by default too. [...] Another option being considered is having the option to enable/disable it at either the GTK toolkit level or Wayland compositor level.
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byrtkluttz ( 244325 ) writes:
They are worrying about inadvertent middle click when you have browsers that try to force you into using the address bar for other things. The address bar should be the address bar and nothing else. And that address should always display the FQDN that you are connecting to, not just the domain. Also, they need to stop text fields from being able to capture the cursor automatically. How many times have people clicked on a link and while waiting for the site to load went and did something else only to have the browser force grab the cursor while you are typing other things, potentially critically private things. Also close the loophole where a site can see where a mouse is and what you are doing on the page. F* the advertisers, build the browser for the users and nothing else. Reply to fingerprinting requests with the same response from every browser. So many loopholes that need to be closed before worrying about something like the middle click.
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bythefrog ( 8075 ) writes:
If only you were a customer, maybe they would address these issues that you have raised. Clearly, they are listening to their customers and not their end users.
bycfalcon ( 779563 ) writes:
I don't even know what GNOME wants, except that they view it as a victory whenever they make something shitty for real users. Like that's their actual goal as near as I can tell. And once they get rid of this standard, they'll bury the option to turn it back on it some weird place that can't be accessed except by a special Power-user type extension, which you have to grab separately and gives you shit about how you're gonna break stuff if you use it.
GNOME is a fucking disgrace. Every time I have to use it I try to configure it (if allowed) and then just push through it the best I can. Obviously any machine I have root on doesn't have any of that shit.
To make it stupider, other desktop environments use their GTK3 file selection thing, which is less functional than a windows dialogue box from 1993, generally unable to change to a given manually entered directory completely. Everything they touch gets so bad. I wish they would go the fuck away and never write any more code.
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byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
To make it stupider, other desktop environments use their GTK3 file selection thing, which is less functional than a windows dialogue box from 1993, generally unable to change to a given manually entered directory completely. Everything they touch gets so bad. I wish they would go the fuck away and never write any more code.
And what's with the complete allergy now to commandline users?
I work from the terminal.when I start a gui program, I'm in some project subdirectory. Why in seven hells is the current wor
bycfalcon ( 779563 ) writes:
Who fucking cares about your trivial use case? A competent program solves yours effortlessly, starting a filepick in the working directory is a sensible default and not what is being discussed.
The problem is for anyone who starts it from an icon, or who works from multiple subdirectories (for instance, when I edit with LibreOffice I'm in three subdirectories often, or if I'm building an iso in a CD burning program. Obviously filepickers should not be written assuming that you have one working directory an
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
Who fucking cares about your trivial use case?
Well, me for one.
A competent program solves yours effortlessly, starting a filepick in the working directory
uh... you just said that's a trivial usecase?
is a sensible default and not what is being discussed.
Well, the topic is general whinging about gnome. General whinging is on topic, if you don't like that then I invite you to to somewhere else on the internet.
Obviously filepickers should not be written assuming that you have one working directory and you star
bykarmawarrior ( 311177 ) writes:
> Who fucking cares about your trivial use case?
Ah the Wayland developers slogan.
And the reason Wayland is so fucking awful.
bycfalcon ( 779563 ) writes:
Wait are you saying it DOESN'T start in the working directory either? I thought you were saying that everyone should run from commandline and never need a second thing. Not that it fails to support that either. It didn't even occur to me at all that they wouldn't support that. Outrageous.
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
Wait are you saying it DOESN'T start in the working directory either? I thought you were saying that everyone should run from commandline and never need a second thing. Not that it fails to support that either. It didn't even occur to me at all that they wouldn't support that. Outrageous.
Oh just got to this sorry. No, it doesn't start in the CWD when you start from the commandline, it doesn't even put the CWD in the sidebar (though some programmers put it there).
byaRTeeNLCH ( 6256058 ) writes:
I just read your exchange and figure it's probably Gnome's fault that discussing its shortcomings gets people so confused and upset they get into a disagreeing mode out of contagious contraryanism.
To be entirely fair, I think the good thing of having Gnome is to have a place for all condescending, Windows loving and Apple worshipping devs to congregate and not infect other places where they'd do more harm. And I stay away from Gnome to keep my sanity. And my computer. It's mine, and I decide how it behave
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
Clearly, they are listening to their customers and not their end users.
Who are their customers?
● threshold.
bytest321 ( 8891681 ) writes:
How many times have people clicked on a link and while waiting for the site to load went and did something else only to have the browser force grab the cursor while you are typing other things, potentially critically private things.
What window manager or desktop environment do you use? (I use *box and KDE and I've never had that particular problem.)
byreanjr ( 588767 ) writes:
I have this problem on Wayland. One of the major reasons I refuse to use it. Something about their X compatibility layer messes up input focus.
byDamnOregonian ( 963763 ) writes:
Wayland absolutely does not allow this kind of stealing of focus. Something else funky is going on.
The only way an application has to take focus, or put itself on top, or anything like that is via the XDG Activation Protocol [wayland.app]
Different compositors have different levels of ...protection... from applications doing this, but importantly- it's up to the compositor.
In X, your compositor/decorator have no say over this whatsofucking ever, and any application can do it- or more importantly, just swipe your keyp
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
This is a very Wayland answer.
Wayland absolutely does not allow this kind of stealing of focus. Something else funky is going on.
The only way an application has to take focus, or put itself on top, or anything like that is via the XDG Activation Protocol
[...]In X[...]
Wayland doesn't allow this X11 FAIL at all. Here's how it's done in Wayland.
byDamnOregonian ( 963763 ) writes:
LOL- You could have just said, "I can't engage your argument, so I'm going to pull a fallacy out of my ass instead."
How fucking educated are you? Highschool? Get the fuck out of here.
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
You haven't quite let me check off the wayland fanboi bingo card yet.
I've got
- "it's never Wayland's fault"
- Anger at someone not worshipping Wayland.
If you just yell at the user for wanting it to be fixed, and then tell the user they are wrong and it should be like that then I can get a whole row.
byDamnOregonian ( 963763 ) writes:
- "it's never Wayland's fault"
Never said that.
- Anger at someone not worshipping Wayland.
Outright lie.
You're no user, you're just a dumbfuck troll.
A user would have asked questions and got answers.
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
You're no user,
Correct, I am a user of X11 not Wayland since X is, frankly, better, somehow. I find that a bit mystifying but there you go!
A user would have asked questions and got answers.
Yeah! Like telling the users they don't want feature really, that they're idiots for wanting it and all authors and users should rewrite old-fashioned software not to make it better to use but simply because Wayland doesn't support things like window placement that have been standard for 40 years.
byreanjr ( 588767 ) writes:
My problem isn't exactly as the previous guys but its quite similar. There seems to be a delay in focus switching. So, when I Alt-Tab, I expect to be able to immediately start typing into the new window, but under Wayland, there's a momentary delay where input is still going to the old window. It's no longer a sequence of keystrokes that get processed in logical order, but some non-deterministic handling of keystrokes where system load impacts the sequence of events.
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
but under Wayland, there's a momentary delay where input is still going to the old window.
Official Wayland fanboi answer: Wayland is just a protocol so it's not Wayland's fault. X11 is old and busted and old and also just a protocol but that doesn't count because Wayland is just a protocol so literally every problem with the Wayland ecosystem is someone else's fault don't blame Wayland because X11 is old.
byDamnOregonian ( 963763 ) writes:
You really are too stupid to be having this conversation.
This is a bug, specific to a compositor. It has nothing to do with Wayland whatsoever, except that the compositor implements Wayland for its client/server communications (which aren't even fucking at play here)
Go cook me some fries, fuckwit.
byDamnOregonian ( 963763 ) writes:
That sounds like a very major compositor bug. If you don't want to file a bug- let me know what compositor you're using, and I'll see if I can replicate and file.
Alt-Tab should be entirely synchronized, since it's managed by the one thing in the system that can control focus. If it's not, that's bad, and a bug.
byreanjr ( 588767 ) writes:
It would have to be Mutter or Weston, but I'm not sure which. I also am not sure, focus follows mouse maybe involved. And I think it happens when switching from an X app to a Wayland app.
It's not a consistent thing though. It's hard to reproduce. It just sometimes happens as I'm using the system.
It's been like a year since I tried Wayland last, so I'm a bit fuzzy on details.
byAir-Op ( 465781 ) writes:
Yes, that would be a good thing to fix all of those things, but this is easy to fix, and should be..
Middle clicking and pasting a password or secret information is a serious flaw.
byflightmaker ( 1844046 ) writes:
I just used it to log in to Slashdot from my passcode manager. I've no idea what any of my passcodes are. Double or triple click in the passcode manager followed by middle click does the job.
The middle click isn't in the least bit confusing, I love it, I sometimes use it maybe 30 times in a day.
Please whoever is listening, don't disable it.
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bytest321 ( 8891681 ) writes:
It says disable "by default". For Firefox it is controlled by about:config setting clipboard.autocopy, which is currently set to true by default on linux platforms, and false on Windows https://kb.mozillazine.org/Cli... [mozillazine.org] I imagine they are considering swapping it to false on new installs on linux.
byhoustonbofh ( 602064 ) writes:
For now. Flash started that way too... Now I have VMs of old computers just to log into copiers and old network equipment.
by_merlin ( 160982 ) writes:
Can't you somehow use the Ruffle runtime to run Flash content?
byhoustonbofh ( 602064 ) writes:
Does not always work in browser based web consoles.
bydrainbramage ( 588291 ) writes:
No one is listening.
The cake is a lie.
In space no one can hear you scream.
byhoustonbofh ( 602064 ) writes:
This is the thing I miss most on Windows when forced to use it. I know we can re-enable it, for now, but if it ever goes, so will I!
byNarcocide ( 102829 ) writes:
seconded
byfph il quozientatore ( 971015 ) writes:
Can't you do the same in a more standards-compatible way with CTRL+c, CTRL+v?
byA nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) writes:
To an extent. X has two clipboards, although I don't know what they are called. Highlight some terminal text, use CTRL-SHIFT-C to copy it to one clipboard. Highlight some other terminal text, leave the terminal, go to the browser. CTRL-C pastes the first clipboard, MIDDLE-BUTTON pastes the second clipboard. It's incredibly handy.
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byhigfchjgddljr5778 ( 7730578 ) writes:
Whose standard though? X11 is a standard. Gnome and Mozilla seem to consider microsoft the standard because control-c does not even copy on a mac. I am a gnome user and a firefox user and i do not want my settings changed to be like microsoft because someone thinks the microsoft way is âoestandardâ or somehow better.
byallo ( 1728082 ) writes:
One of the main points is, that the "middle click clipboard" does not overwrite your actual clipboard. It is a quick one-off you can use while you use the windows-style clipboard for content you need longer.
byjoaommp ( 685612 ) writes:
"standard"...
Having the middle click paste is incredibly handy and practical. When I started using Linux almost 30 years ago (rocking Afterstep as desktop) I found it strange. Now it's hard to live without it. It improves your productivity a lot.
byrastos1 ( 601318 ) writes:
Can't you do the same in a more standards-compatible way with CTRL+c, CTRL+v?
Let me guess: you think "Windows ways" == "standard way"?
Also: how do you copy from terminal? Do you override key combination to send interrupt signal? Or use "non standard" key combination?
bystrikethree ( 811449 ) writes:
The middle click isn't in the least bit confusing, I love it, I sometimes use it maybe 30 times in a day.
Please whoever is listening, don't disable it.
It sucks being a number eh? I like my taskbar on the left hand side rather than the bottom or top. At work, using Microsoft Windows, that is no longer an option after 20+ years. Apparently, only a million people used that feature, so when they rewrote the shell, they did not add that capability back in.
The same thing is happening to you now. Only a million people use middle click, but with 7 billion potential consumers, you really do not matter and your needs will be ignored.
On some level, I understand. On
bycrow ( 16139 ) writes:
One of the best features of Unix is cut-and-paste with only using the mouse. I recently started using a Mac for my work desktop, and I really miss it. At least it works within iTerm2 and emacs, but not between programs.
Sure, perhaps have an option to turn it off, but don't break one of the best features of Linux just because too many people don't know how to use it.
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byAlworx ( 885008 ) writes:
yes
byeneville ( 745111 ) writes:
I think middle button paste is awesome too. The benefits of middle paste out number the cons.
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byMrKaos ( 858439 ) writes:
One of the best features of Unix is cut-and-paste with only using the mouse.
AND ctrl-c + ctrl-v (or command for you) still works so you get two cut and paste buffers. Asides for workspaces it's probably the most useful used feature for me.
It's seems this is a trend to dumb down power user features so that GUIs become a productivity obstacle appealing to the lowest common denominator of "entry" level users.
byhoustonbofh ( 602064 ) writes:
Who are the clueless idiots making this decision? Have they ever used Linux?
bySysKoll ( 48967 ) writes:
An excellent point. There are several comments agreeing with this in the PR discussion (https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D277804). I urge you to chime in and add your comment protesting against the removal of middle-click paste. I did.
bywhoever57 ( 658626 ) writes:
The comments there describe this feature as undiscoverable. Have they used GNOME 3?
My first experience with this was trying to move something on a bottom panel. In Gnome 2, this is trivially achieved with the right mouse button. But in the version of Gnome 3 that I tried, it took the "meta" (Windows) key and some other button: completely undiscoverable. I use MATE instead of Gnome 3.
bydskoll ( 99328 ) writes:
I love middle-click-paste. I could live with Mozilla et al. disabling it by default providing they give you a way to re-enable it. However, I fear that this is just step 1 and then step 2 will be to completely remove support for it.
Yes, it's important to appeal to newbie users. But it's also important not to alienate long-time power users.
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byhoustonbofh ( 602064 ) writes:
My fear too... They have a history of this.
byGravis Zero ( 934156 ) writes:
Yes, it's important to appeal to newbie users. But it's also important not to alienate long-time power users.
We are talking about the same people that came up with Gnome 3, right? I ask because they worked really hard to drive people (like me) away from the Gnome desktop.
bytechno-vampire ( 666512 ) writes:
In my case they succeeded quite thoroughly. When I saw what Gnome 3 was going to be like I started looking around, and by the time it came out I'd migrated to Xfce and Compiz and never looked back. It's lightweight (An important consideration at the time because money was tight and RAM upgrades weren't an option.) easy to configure and lots of eye candy available if that's what you want. Most of that goes on my laptop so that I can show off to people still using Windows and ask them why their computers c
byGravis Zero ( 934156 ) writes:
Same here. I was adrift for several years, trying MATE, KDE, XFCE, some obscure ultra-lightweight desktops but I eventually landed on LXQt. Nothing is ever perfect but I've been on LXQt for years now.
bycaseih ( 160668 ) writes:
Yes, it's important to appeal to newbie users. But it's also important not to alienate long-time power users.
Ahh the mythical new users. I'm not convinced they actually exist. All that ever happens in my experience is you do alienate the long-time power users.
byAnonymous Coward writes:
Yes, it's important to appeal to newbie users. But it's also important not to alienate long-time power users.
Ahh the mythical new users. I'm not convinced they actually exist.
They exist, but they don't fit the fit the newbie user stereotype (which is more fitting for some old, rancid, aggressive windows or mac user more than anything else).
Probably 90% of non "techy" users don't have any clue about Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V copy-pasting or any "advanced" features at all (like Ctrl-Z/Ctrl-Y undo/redo, searching in p
bycaseih ( 160668 ) writes:
That's certainly fine. They are welcome to not use middle-click paste. But I actually doubt any of those users have any reason at all to try Linux. That's what I mean about the mythical new user.
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
Yes, it's important to appeal to newbie users.
Though the way to appeal to newbie users isn't to simply be a shit version of their existing system. This is what the goal appears to be. Once it was to be a better Windows than Windows, then that morphed into mac envy. Apple will always have the best OSX. Micros~1 will always have the best Microsoft Windows. Because they get to say what those are. Any differences in a slavish copy are worse.
The only thing Linux can be is the best Linux.
bydargaud ( 518470 ) writes:
Why is a simple program like Firefox able to disable a window manager facility ?!? It should have no say in it. Now, Gnome wanting to disable it is another matter I can't care less about, I've always loathed Gnome and its complete lack of customability.
byallo ( 1728082 ) writes:
The problem is probably their non-native UI. Use standard widgets and you get all such features for free. But they replace them one-by-one. Why are the scrollbars so ugly? They are no longer system widgets, but something the browser draws. All form elements are also self implemented. The settings dialog is a HTML page (what a nightmare) and the about:config dialog that was a perfectly usable list box with all the shortcuts (you get for free by using a list box widget) you would expect. Now it is some HTML p
byAnonymous Coward writes:
You know how to improve GUIs? Break things that people have used for decades. Users love that!
byhoustonbofh ( 602064 ) writes:
I had mod points yesterday... Shit.
bytoutankh ( 1544253 ) writes:
At this point I would be surprised if Firefox stopped changing the UI. They really make it hard to like their product.
bymarkdavis ( 642305 ) writes:
>"Both GNOME and Firefox are considering disabling middle-click paste by default, arguing it's a confusing, accident-prone X11 relic that dumps clipboard contents without warning."
PLEASE DO NOT. How about having an environment variable and LETTING THE USER DECIDE. I use middle-click pasting all the time. PLEASE DO NOT use the stupid gsettings stuff. I don't use GNOME, and that stuff is annoying and confusing.
And this crap Firefox does with single clicking in the URL bar selecting the ENTIRE LINE is
byBert64 ( 520050 ) writes:
what do you think "disabling...by default" means in the text you literally quoted? That's "letting the user decide".
No, changing the default is trying to push the user to make a specific choice. The next step is often to force them.
The option can already be disabled, the users already have a choice, there is no need to change the default.
by_merlin ( 160982 ) writes:
You could argue that having it on by default hurts Linux adoption because most people are used to GUI applications not replacing the contents of the clipboard just by highlighting text and they're used to middle click raising windows or invoking fast scrolling in web browsers. Making the defaults more like what most people are familiar with could help ease their transition to Linux.
byI_Wrote_This ( 858682 ) writes:
As has been noted, cut&paste using just the mouse is a big productivity tool.
But Windows doesn't have it (and MacOS doesn't even have the concept of multiple buttons) so lets all sink to the highest common factor so that everyone can suffer.
Just like the KDE people removing shading (another extremely productive feature) just because it doesn't seem to be part of Wayland.
byRadagast ( 2416 ) writes:
That's funny, MacOS works just fine with multiple buttons, and happily pops up a context menu when I right click on something. Oh, I'm sorry, it might be a bit slow to load this webpage back there in 1999, the last year when this wasn't the case.
byI_Wrote_This ( 858682 ) writes:
MacOS works just fine with multiple buttons
Perhaps I should have said Apple. I believe they still supply a one-button mouse?
Similarly a PC laptop will just have a 2-button touchpad.
So I have a 3-button (well, 7 actually) mouse that I use with it so that I can be more productive.
It would be more useful if people advertized what these features are, rather than turn them off.
byBert64 ( 520050 ) writes:
Perhaps I should have said Apple. I believe they still supply a one-button mouse?
No they don't.
It might appear to have a single button, but the entire area is sensitive to touch so pressing on either side results in a different action, with the default settings making it behave like a traditional multi button mouse. The mouse also supports swiping - up and down like a traditional scroll wheel, or side to side as well.
Same with their touchpads - they look like a flat surface with no buttons, but they can behave like any number of buttons depending where you press, how hard you press, mul
byMrKaos ( 858439 ) writes:
But Windows doesn't have it (and MacOS doesn't even have the concept of multiple buttons)
Windows Terminal has this feature and you can enable it in the settings. If you want it in the desktop you can add X11 functionality and it will work. I've done both because it is probably one of the most useful computing features apart form workspaces. As I recall it works in MAC if you enable X11 functionality - but it's been a few years since I used Mac everyday.
lets all sink to the highest common factor so that everyone can suffer.
You mean raise your standards and learn something new.
bysystemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) writes:
The goal of the GNOME developers is to find features they can remove to piss off the most amount of users with the least amount of effort, then to troll the bug reports with smug, dismissive answers. It's their primary development cycle. It's been that way since "The Spatial Way." Their attitude is so bad that random, well-intentioned devs are driven to near insanity from glancing run-ins with them: https://felipec.wordpress.com/... [wordpress.com]
And Firefox is a rudderless empty vessel that's been adrift for years.
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byMrKaos ( 858439 ) writes:
Their attitude is so bad that random, well-intentioned devs are driven to near insanity from glancing run-ins with them: https://felipec.wordpress.com/... [wordpress.com]
And Firefox is a rudderless empty vessel that's been adrift for years.
Thanks, that also explains why gnome terminal bug of detaching and reattaching bash sessions has not worked since 2018. I liked Gnome because it was uncluttered (at least in Mint) but the downhill progression in usability is what I've noticed.
byfahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) writes:
middle-click paste by default, arguing it's a confusing, accident-prone X11 relic that dumps clipboard contents without warning.
Noting that a user-initiated middle-click precedes it.
byPPH ( 736903 ) writes:
... PC mice only had two buttons (one for a mac). Only those weird UNIX systems had a middle button. For some reason, three button functions became the norm, whether an actual third button or the click function of a scroll wheel. Popular demand in action.
If you want to Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, go right ahead. Don't like the middle button? Don't use it. I'm not certain, but it seemed to me that this was an OS UI "style". One button on a Mac, two on a Windows machine and three on the various *NIXes. Not per applicat
byHiThere ( 15173 ) writes:
You pretty much have to use the middle button, because they've made the scrollbars so small they're difficult to hit.
byAnne Thwacks ( 531696 ) writes:
because they've made the scrollbars so small they're difficult to hit.
No they did not make scroll bars small. It is just that no one has told them that screens are no longer 320x240, and they have not used a computer since they were.
Maybe UI decisions should be made by the under 70's? or over 18s?
Removing the middle button paste to assist non-computer users to not use computers is not an intelligent decision It is a screw-up.
Maybe, during install, one of the questions should be Are you mentally defect
byThePhilips ( 752041 ) writes:
The correct title should have been "GNOME devs are still idiots". With "now joined by Mozilla Inc." added.
Why is this even news? These idiots had removed Alt+Tab from early GNOME3 by default. And it took weeks of debates on the mail lists by Ubuntu people to force the idiots to put it back.
What else did you expect?
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byAnonymous Coward writes:
My mouse doesn't have a Middle button
between the left button and the right button is a scroll wheel
byBert64 ( 520050 ) writes:
On every mouse with a scroll wheel i've seen it was possible to press the scroll wheel, which every os ii can think of interpreted as a press of the middle button.
bywilliamyf ( 227051 ) writes:
When there were only 3 button mice, middle click paste was absolutely fantastic, used it estensively in the late '90s and early '00s in many unix workstations at Uni and early work.
But nowadays, the world is dominated by trackpads with gestures that do not have 3rd buttons, and mouses where the middle button is also a scrollwheel, leading to the aforemntioned acttidents.
As a matter of fact, I map the third wheel to "open link in new tab"
So yes, get rid of third button paste by default. Put whatever default
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
But nowadays, the world is dominated by trackpads with gestures that do not have 3rd buttons
yes they do. Even my 16 year old thinkpad with its frankly historic synaptics pad supports paste on the trackpad as a gesture. I have never encountered a laptop where I can't get touch pad paste working.
and mouses where the middle button is also a scrollwheel, leading to the aforemntioned acttidents.
What kind of piece of shit mouse do you have?? I've been using scroll wheel mice for decades now, of all varieties from
byRichard_J_N ( 631241 ) writes:
That's partly why I only buy Thinkpads - for the mouse with the 3 buttons (and I disable the trackpad).
But what you want is easily achievable by either xinput or xmodmap.
byFly Swatter ( 30498 ) writes:
Your mouse is broken, correctly working scroll wheels have a strong enough spring as to not be accidentally clicked.
bycroftj ( 2359 ) writes:
This is just another reason for my to spit the foul taste out of my mouth I get every time I hear Gnome and Gtk. As for Firefox, I try to like it, but it keeps whittling away at things that make it even my second choice for a browser. I can't wait for Ladybird to mature enough to overtake Brave on my devices.
bycaseih ( 160668 ) writes:
Gnome can do what it wants. I don't use any gnome applications anymore. The minimalist, hide-everything UI fad has been really bad for usability for me. No thanks. I once loved developing in GTK+ but now I just use Qt. Kind of sucks to be stuck with C++isms, but it is a very nice toolkit. Oh and it supports middle-click paste, even on Wayland so it can't be that hard. Besides that I prefer the KDE traditional way of doing things. I sincerely hope firefox does not follow down this road of removing usefu
byreanjr ( 588767 ) writes:
Good think I don't use those. Cause that would cause me to switch to Chrome.
byA nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) writes:
I despise this trend away from the UNIX philosophy of simple tools combined by users to do things. I despise systemd taking on more and more roles. I despise demonizing X11's client-server model in favor of Wayland's one monolithic bastard. I despise getting rid of middle click copy-paste. I recently tried to install Ubuntu 25 and discovered they've eliminated middle button emulation.
Ever since I was a kid and read Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, one chapter in particular has stuck with me -- some planet has a nuclear power plant blow up, and the Galactic Empire's solution was to shut down all nuclear power plants. That's how I feel about all this UNIX backsliding. "We don't understand it. Get rid of it."
Bah.
Instead of trying to fix X11's security problems, the powers that be want to get rid of it. I have many times used its client-server model on remote servers. Sure, it's not necessary, just as fire is not necessary, since we could all eat raw food, even meat. But it sure made problems easier to diagnose.
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bytender-matser ( 938909 ) writes:
Even from before it was called Firefox, Mozilla has been a bloated, misdesigned, user-hostile disaster.
Mozilla has never been able to work properly on X11 without a window manager, and more precisely a reparenting, click-to-focus one. Any focus-follows-mouse wm (or any innovative UI) had to implement ugly kludges and special cases just for being able to click links, open menus or enter data into forms.
Mozilla has never implemented the selection protocol [x.org] protocol properly, whether for the clipboard (the one
byLavandera ( 7308312 ) writes:
Middle button paste is fantastic feature - it saved me multiple times when I had issues with keyboard.
They will disable it and hide and then remove because "no one uses it".
They broke nautilus (no more double panes), then gnome-terminal (everything in one big process - when it hangs - all terminals are dead) and now this...
byallo ( 1728082 ) writes:
Try to find how to navigate to your homepage (browser start page) using the menu. You can add a toolbar button and it has a shortcut, but I don't see any menu item that gets you there.
byPleaseThink ( 8207110 ) writes:
I wanted to be a UI designer when I was in college. I completely dropped that goal near graduation as UI were slowly going to shit and I didn't want to be a part of the people making computers harder to use. Over a decade later they're still getting worse and worse. Having dual copy-paste buffers is awesome. If anything that should be expanded (add features like run commands on past copies and paste all past copies together), not neutered. I have no clue what people are thinking nowadays.
Yesterday I opened the playlist on Celluloid (default Ubuntu Mate video player) and was horrified. It changed from an adjustable side panel to a transparent, slide-out pop-up. It's transparent buttons overlap the media's control buttons so you have trouble seeing what you want to click. The media controls no longer work with the playlist open. The playlist is no longer sticky too, it always goes away when you click on something else (and then click that item again because the first click only closed the playlist). The Toggle Playlist button doesn't keep it open like it used too. You can no longer expand the playlist's width, so even medium length names aren't readable and you can't make them readable. Since the playlist is transparent, it interferes with whatever video is being played. You used to be able to leave the playlist open and browse through the media, clicking on an entry, skimming through it with the media bar, then clicking another playlist entry. That was great when skimming and sorting audio recordings. The process took 2 clicks. Now it takes 4 and you lose contextual information each time the playlist is forced to auto-close.
Those changes annoyed me so much I actually looked at it's github to see if there was a way to keep the playlist open and stop it from being transparent. There isn't. The reason the UI was degraded is because someone opened a ticket saying the video player doesn't look identical to newer players and it's UI was too busy. Well fuck you. If we preferred the UIs of other players then we'd be using those other players. Being able to toggle the playlist on/off doesn't make a UI busy. Sliding out a transparent panel on top of active media and other active controls makes the UI busy. I have no clue why that developer decided to accept that ticket and degrade their software in order to make it more identical to other players (and thus have less of a reason to use his software). I wish developers spent more time using their brain to think about the changes they're about to make.
I might as well rant about it's Shortcuts page too. A non-resizable dialog that has a bunch of white space at it's bottom yet requires you to click a Search button to pop-out a search bar. Doing so increases the window size to display the bar rather than just always having that searchbar visible in the empty space. You also have to click the 3 page buttons at the bottom to view the next page of shortcut keys. You can't scroll through them. You also can't change any of the shortcuts. The shortcuts have icons for the left/right keys but words for the up/down arrow keys. Actually the 2nd page does have up/down arrows, only the 1st page uses words for them... Sigh.
Thanks for giving me a place to rant. Now I need to go find another simple media player to use. (VLC is too heavyweight for just skimming some media files and it's file repeat wasn't as seamless. That's important if you're using audio signals to control another device or as background audio for something else.)
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bynazrhyn ( 906126 ) writes:
Maybe you could get Winamp (or Wacup) working on Linux? :D
byLavandera ( 7308312 ) writes:
Just read the merge request comments - they are brilliant:
Adrian Vovk suggesting optimizing for 96% non-users, ingenious, no one has ever come up with that. It might be confusing for non-users so remove the feature the actual user use and love..
Tobias Bernard wrote that the feature is non-controversial... I guess this is why they locked the discussion ... brilliant...
byserviscope_minor ( 664417 ) writes:
Oh but it gets better
I can pretty much guarantee that Red Hat will get support requests about this if we turn the setting off without an easy way to turn it back on
IOW he knows that this will not only piss off existing users but their customers as well. But it's still good!
bycouchslug ( 175151 ) writes:
Which users asked for this?
Change for changes sake is just disruptive and not in a good way.
byallo ( 1728082 ) writes:
I don't care about GNOME, they fucked up the rest of their desktop as well. But Firefox is one of the main applications and randomly disabling widely used features is a bad idea. And one can wonder for how long they maintain an opt-in switch before removing it completely. What do we need then? Helper apps that intercept middle clicks to run ctrl-c ctrl-v?
The problem is also, that ctrl-v is NOT equivalent to middle click paste. That are two clipboards that function slightly different and an hold different co
bytender-matser ( 938909 ) writes:
And one can wonder for how long they maintain an opt-in switch before removing it completely.
Probably not for long; the code which implements the primary selection handling on X11 in mozilla is BADLY broken, and they don't have anybody with the slightest clue about that stuff in their whole team, nor do they care to accept help from outside. And of course, they basically don't give a fuck about Linux / X11 (despite Linux users probably being about 40-50% of their REAL -- non-bot, non-website testers -- user
byallo ( 1728082 ) writes:
I still don't understand why they removed the "clickSelectsAll" option for the address bar. Disabling the feature is just wrapping it into an if, but they still insisted on completely removing it instead of just changing the default.
byFly Swatter ( 30498 ) writes:
But the problem with that is they want to throw out many things that make X11 great; middle click paste is one of those features.
Learn to click or stop using a three button mouse - don't quietly rip out features because you don't like it. This will go from off-by-default to just-gone in a few releases. It will be just-gone because nobody used it because it was off-by-default.
byHighPerformanceCoder ( 931732 ) writes:
Middle click paste is an absolute showstopper for me (and also for my wife, who's not what you'd call a tech-savvy user).
It's already a PITA that some applications don't support middle click (IIRC, Libre Office is one of those, although I could be wrong). If it went away in my web browser, I would absolutely have to move to a different browser, which is a shame, since I've come to enjoy the modern Firefox after migrating to it from Seamonkey a couple of years ago.
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