Taekwindow: Time to make your middle mouse button earn its keep The Reg FOSS desk is, as you might expect, mostly Linux-based, but your correspondent does keep Windows around for things like rooting smartphones and reflashing BIOSes. There are a few things I miss switching from Linux, and the handy functions of the middle mouse button are high on the list. This is where Taekwindow scores. …
I actually didn't know about the "send to background of the stack"-thing, but then most of my work is done on the command line or text editor, and I arrange stuff by having an elaborate layout of virtual desktops. And thanks to Win10 I can now do that in my new job as well. Windows _is_ ready for the desktop, now if it only had a good command line (the Powers that Be in IT do not allow the Linux subsystem :( )
Back before dinosaurs learnt to fly I was using Sun (maybe SGI) workstations with a 4 button mouse. Proper mouse - balls and all. I must admit getting used to 2 copy buffers in *nix style takes a while, but now I constantly bugger up cut'n'paste when I need to use Windows. Can't win.
I came across a 'CAD mouse' by 3Dconnexion (that branch of Logitech best known for its Space Navigator and Space Ball human input devices) the other day on eBay... as far as I can tell, it's just a normal mouse but with a middle button and a big price tag.
I started using 3D CAD at the end of the Unix days with the 3rd button, shortly thereafter duch CAD came to Windows desktops when two buttons and scroll was becoming the norm. These days I use a Logitech MX with extra buttons, so I've remapped some middle button functions away from the scroll wheel.
Remember though: in the UK there is a large cohort of folk who used Acorn Archimedes computers when at school with a GUI that used the middle button for a context menu. For a goid chunk of them it may theor only experience of a *nixy-style 3rd button GUI, if they haven't played with any *nixes since.
That quick way to copy text and url looks dead handy. I was wondering if there are any 'citation manager' softwares or browser plugins that accomplish the same result?
I,e if I copy the text 'Aardvark, n. Insect-eating mammal..' can any plugin add the url so the pasted text reads:
''Aardvark, n. Insect-eating mammal..' - Wikipedia.org/aardvark''
I still (near daily) use vi as my shell. Limits the distractions when I'm writing ... and yet still gives me full access to any shell I want, plus I can run my browser of choice (lynx) ... or even EMACS ... should I feel the need.
Yes, EMACS runs quite nicely under vi :-)
I'm more used to using the middle button for cut/paste than the ^C/^V keys due to lots of CLI use. But I do have the problem that support is a bit spotty.
I can cut from a window and poaste into a browser with the middle button. But if I cut from some visual contexts (browser, arduino IDE) I can't paste into the CLI with ^V.There is a pop-up window in the terminal emulator that allows paste which does it, but that's a messier operation than either middle button or ^V. And it doesn't work in emacs at all.
Xdotool is another corker, enables scripting key and mouse move combinations, some that can be linked to a window with specific title.
I have a ps3 controller that can control vlc without having to write vlc code. The little app just used Xdotool to send keypresses to vlc.
É. G. Mouse move over the screen and double click to full screen, with no code.
>>Linux has this but also offers a different way: select some text, point the mouse somewhere else and middle-click. The selected text is inserted where you clicked.
Powershell does this only it uses right click.... select text, right click, put cursor where you want, right click. Boom.
Right click also pastes whatever is on (the current) clipboard at the moment - say from another non Powershell window..
Shame the rest of Windows hasn't been modified to do the same (I suspect that Powershell caught it off Linux/Unix in the first place) but I guess that would modify too many right click features - Perhaps Microsoft could adopt <alt><right click> instead?
I've been using Unix & Linux for more years than I really care to admit (cough, early 1980's) with all sorts of multi-button CAD mouses, and I have never heard of these uses for the middle button. Where have I been?
Unfortunately the first two don't work on my Debian 11 / Wayland / Gnome 3 system, but the third one does. I've long suspected that cut'n'paste has problems on this box as it sometimes refuses to copy formulae from spreadsheets, so maybe I'll RTFM and get things working as they should.
Nice article, thanks!
When I started my latest job they sent me a brand-new MacBook, which was nice. They also sent a Magic Mouse, where "magic" apparently means "won't do most of the things a normal mouse would do, but looks totally cool". The rest of the world has decided that a plump mouse that fills your hand is the most ergonomic, but Apple disagrees, presumably because cool dudes don't care about RSA.
Much the same is true of the Apple keyboard, which has six keys that all have up/down arrows and seem to do different things depending on the application, but no Page Up/Down, Home or End. Not to mention the horrid little keys that cause unwaannted reppetition. And it has no dedicated hash key. After all, there are no applications that make extensive use of "#" in current use.
@kulia Cant The Apple keyboard is crap? The Apple mouse is crap? Well don't use the things... But then you would have nothing to snark about would you?
I use a Das keyboard that is for a Mac. It has all the keys you say are not there on the Apple keyboard. I do not use the Apple mouse either, I use a cheap Logi mouse. Job sorted
Twitter adopted the # symbol *because* it wasn't in common use. And because it wasn't used as often as some symbols, keyboards don't usually have a dedicated # key.
On my Windows PC I use a G3 Mac Pro Apple keyboard Keyboard because its nicer than any others I have kicking around... it hasn't caused me any problems far as I recall.
Not in use? The twits actually thought that? Really? Would explain lots, if true.
Clearly, the twitterdiots had never spent any time on the network they were taking advantage of, and had never done any programming to speak of. They certainly never used IRC, nor did any shell programming ...
My keybr0ad has had a dedicated octothorpe (<shift>3) for a lot longer than twitter has been around (the VT-05 came out in, what, '70?). IBM's Selectrics used <shift>3 from the early 1960s.
"My keybr0ad has had a dedicated octothorpe (<shift>3) for a lot longer than twitter has been around (the VT-05 came out in, what, '70?). IBM's Selectrics used <shift>3 from the early 1960s."
Dedicated meaning you don't need to use a modifier key to access. If you look to the keypad, you'll see dedicated keys for asterisk (for emphasis and multiplication), slash (for dates and division), minus (for dates and subtraction), plus, and period. No octothorpe.
I am the Human slave to a Furry Feline Goddess whom Does Not Allow such vermin in Her domain. If someone buys me a mouse I tend to find it disemboweled & strewn about the house as a sign of Her displeasure.
*Looks off screen*
I must be going, SWMBO is demanding Her morning bowl of gooshy food...
On Windows to bring a window back into sight I use Alt+Space which opens the Window menu (which will always appear visible on screen regardless of where its parent window actually is) then M to activate Move mode. then you can use the cursor keys to drag the window where you want it. [Return] to leave it in the desired position, [ESC] to return it whence it came.
That's been working since the earliest versions of Windows and works even if you have no mouse at all. :)
Excellent tip, but if that doesn't work, it might be because the application is maximised (the Move option is then greyed out).
Practice on an application you can see on screen, but alt-space then afterwards an r will 'restore' the application to non-maximised. Then do alt-space and m etc as above.
If you middle-click on a window's title bar, it sends that window to the back of the stack, putting it behind all the other windows.
I'd never heard of this, despite using Linux exclusively for 15 years, so I tried it. And yes, it does work, but only on some windows. Firefox, fine. Evolution, fine. Thunderbird, fine. Audacious, fine. But not "Files" or Remmina. Perhaps it's not coincidence that both of those use the new "Stupid" Linux interface which has ambiguous icons placed randomly along the top, which appears not to be a title bar, despite having a title on it.
"Have they implemented Adjust-Scroll Arrow to scroll in the opposite direction yet?"
The various un*x GUIs had that capability long before RISC OS existed. It wasn't always implemented, mainly due to the fact that nobody wanted/needed it, but the capability was there.
I'm fairly certain that the capability existed early on in Windows (1.x, pre-RISC OS) ... but again, it wasn't much called for, so (almost) nobody implemented it anywhere.
... might want to look into Klipper.
Klipper doesn't manage your cut buffer history, rather it saves the history of your X Selections (items hilighted, before you copy or cut them), and then allows you to select from a list which you want to paste. It has worked for many users in my sphere for about twenty years now. It's an ugly hack, but it does what it does well enough ... it seems to be quite stable, and never gets in the way. It protects your saved bits & bobs between sessions. Yes, potentially it's a privacy problem ... but it's easy enough to clear, should you need/want to do so.
Here's a link to The Klipper Handbook ... but as usual for small utilities like this, it's easier to use than it is to read about it.
For those of you unfortunate enough to use Gnome, might want to try glipper.
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