GNOME dev gives fans of Linux's middle-click paste the middle finger

Ever since Linux got a graphical desktop, you could middle-click to paste – but if GNOME gets its way, that's going away soon, and from Firefox too. More proof, if you will, that the traditional keyboard and multi-button mouse config is boring legacy tech to the hipsters in charge these days. GNOME developer Jordan Petridis …

[Anonymous Cowherder]

Another oldie

I didn't like this feature when I started using Linux, then it became an essential feature that I'd use multiple times a day, and like the author, I miss it badly in MacOS. Taking it out of Linux is a mistake, but symptomatic of much of modern computing where useful features get trashed that have big effects on people's workflows and ways of using Computers. I'm not against all progress, just those that make things just that bit worse for those of us who have long established habits. If you must take it out by default, fine, but please give us the option to re-enable in settings. Us middle-click pasters will die out fairly soon, and if this feature isn't enabled by default then others who came after us won't get that habit

[Carlie J. Coats, Jr.]

Re: Another oldie

A "vi"ism correction:

s/multiple/hundreds/g

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Another oldie

s/ds/ds of/

[hedgie]

Re: Another oldie

It seems as though with GNOME especially, each new iteration is more of a regression than any sort of "progress". Were I a GNOME user, I'd have gone over to MATE a long time ago. And that seems a common enough opinion considering how popular MATE is.

WRT middle-click and MacOS, I don't have it assigned to middle-click, but do have a mouse button assigned to such operations. But then again, I've always used programmable Logitech mice.

[coredump]

Re: Another oldie

I'm reminded of the saying, "easier to destroy than to create".

GNOME devs seem to have merged the 2 behaviors. Not in a good way.

[david 12]

Re: Another oldie

"easier to destroy than to create"

The same children that do Wikipedia editing and Stack Overflow admin. No citation? [Delete]. Not 'noteworthy'? [Delete]. I don't know that? [Delete]

[hedgie]

Re: Another oldie

Yeah. The early 2010s were not a good era for the big two Linux desktops. GNOME3 was bad enough. KDE4 was a dumpster fire until about 4.2,[1] and wasn't even something I'd run regularly until about 4.7. I was a heavy Enlightenment user because of that.

[1] And I say that as primarily a KDE user. I held on to KDE3 until the bitter end on Linux and even longer on MacOS.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: Another oldie

I use it endlessly, and miss it whenever I have to work on a Windows box. Why do people want to remove features that aren't in anybody's way?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Another oldie

> Why do people want to remove features that aren't in anybody's way?

Attention seeking.

[may_i]

Hipsters indeed

I use the middle button to paste what's currently selected extensively.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Hipsters indeed

I not only constantly use the middle button but I have a mouse that actually has one instead of the "scroll" wheel: the Sun Crossbow USB mouse.

I love it so much that I bought as many as I could about 15 years ago and have been slowly going through my supply as they eventually wear out (it's usually the left button that dies first but the most recent one died because the little plastic rollers that contact the mouse ball simply wore out and no longer could reliably maintain mechanical contact).

I keep a wireless two and a half button (scroll wheel) mouse around for times when I really need that but it's honestly rare for the work I do.

Of course, I also have a Sun Type 6 keyboard with the Control key where [insert favorite deity] and Stallman intended, immediately to the left of the A key.¹

I also bought a half dozen of those and have been slowly going through them as time and coffee spills take their toll.

Admittedly, this all probably says more about my lack of manual (and mental) dexterity as well as a certain perverse retro-pigheadedness than it does about the succeeding tecnologies but there you have it.

I suppose I'll eventually have to break out a soldering iron and cannibalized parts to keep the last mouse functioning, which, given the aforementioned lack of manual dexterilty, should be an interesting endeavor replete with verbal imprecations, singed fingers, and the smell of burning circuit board in great abundance.

_______________

¹ I have honestly never quite understood the modern key placement of the Caps Lock key to the left of the A key, since the only use is in the ease of producing shouty emails.

[karlkarl]

Re: Hipsters indeed

Heh, same. I have a box of ~50 of these mice when my old university replaced its Sun Ray lab.

They work great. Even have (mostly intact) matching Sun mouse-pads. "The network *is* the computer".

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Hipsters indeed

I think I just found my new best friend. . .

But, seriously, Sun Rays, UGH!

I had one of those miserable things in my office for a couple of years and hated it with a white hot passion usually reserved for certain political figures. I think the lab director was trying to get me to quit or something.¹

The "network" might be the computer but I'll take an actual computer any day of the week.

________________

¹ Fooled him. I retired two days after becoming fully vested in the university's retirement plan and never looked back. Pigheadedness pays off sometimes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

Sunrays weren't that bad for some use cases. I quite liked the way that I could pull my badge from one in a local office, fly across the world to a remote site, insert the badge in a spare Sunray in a drop-in space, and have my desktop appear exactly as I left it.

[gosand]

Re: Hipsters indeed

You can have both. I have a Logitech M720 wireless for work, and a Logitech G502 Hero (wired) at home. You press down on the scroll wheel to click. These also have what is called "infinity scrolling" where a button can be clicked to make the scroll wheel spin freely. VERY handy for large files or other things where you need to cover a lot of ground. I can't imagine using any other kind of mouse.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Hipsters indeed

As I mentioned, I have one of those scroll wheel rodents, some Logitech or another.

My problem, and I hasten to point out this may be just my problem (that "manual dexterity" thing), is that I often roll the wheel while pressing for middle click, which can send the cursor scampering off to parts unknown.

Once the last Crossbow finally gives up the ghost, I'll probably finally develop the proper hand-eye coordination to use one of those wheelie mice and get on with life, but until then. . . three button mice, forever.

[gosand]

Re: Hipsters indeed

And if you like buttons, they have a few more near the thumb rest. You can map them to things like 'forward' and 'back'. There are others with even more buttons, but I haven't really found a good use case for using them (or for remembering what I set them to do)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

The remembering is indeed my main challenge too, I have the same with the whole 'gestures' lark. And I sustained damage at my thumb which means I can't use the rear button of the two anyway :)

I use the Logitech MX Anywhere 3 because it also works on glass (don't ask me how), and that wheel also has an auto mode where it goes into freewheeling when you scroll past a certain point. Very, very useful if you're fast scanning through large volumes of information. I have three in use at different locations (one travels with me), and I always keep a new spare, just in case.

Way too useful to do without :)

[KarMann]

Re: Hipsters indeed

You're so cruel. I accidentally failed to pack my MX Anywhere on my current trip, and have to choose between laptop's trackpad or a wired Dell mouse that just isn't doing it for me, and makes a horribly scrapy noise on the desk when I move it. I miss my mouse. But, we should be reunited in just around 30 hours, at long last!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

That's a tech's return to home then: ignore plants, cat, wife, first go find that mouse :).

Joking side, I've been there - that's exactly why one lives permanently in my travel bag now.

[Adrian Harvey]

Re: Hipsters indeed

> 1 I have honestly never quite understood the modern key placement of the Caps Lock key to the left of the A key, since the only use is in the ease of producing shouty emails.

I'd like to take issue with your use of 'modern' here! The Caps Lock key and it's predecessor, the Shift Lock key have been there for well over a century - see this example from the 1900's. The key had to be there because early versions mechnaically locked down the shift key so being directly above it made the mechanical linkage easy. I realise some early computer keyboards got rid of the shift lock and put a Control key there, but having modifier keys duplicated on both sides of the keyboard where they are used with the letter keys by touch-typists is helpful (otherwise hitting Ctrl-A or Ctrl-Q pulls your fingers off the home keys...)

That said, it (Caps Lock) should be removed from modern keyboards, and replaced with one of the growing number of other modifier keys to free up a bit of space on the bottom row - perhaps put the 'fn' key from laptops there? as it's not one that is used in a touch-typing manner mostly.... The caps lock function could either become a double-click of the shift key (familiar to phone users) or perhaps a fn+Shift function to retain familiarity for some keyboard users?

[David Haworth 1]

Re: Hipsters indeed

xmodmap is your friend. I use it to convert CapsLock into an extra shift that gives me accented characters for the non-English languages that I sometimes have to use.

It also gives me a £ sign on my US keyboard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

When it comes to multilingual use I must say that I found the Swiss QWERTZ layout about the most useful. Still has the numbers in a sensible place and has CAPS lock rather than AZERTY's SHIFT lock, but practically all accents are directly reachable. Takes a bit to get used to, but super handy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

> but practically all accents are directly reachable.

IMO Spanish (as in the country) is the handiest layout for all Western European languages, partly because it was designed as multilingual (Spanish, Catalan, and Galician/Portuguese)¹ from the start and those cover most Western European orthographic quirks. Unlike most other layouts, it uses dead keys for diacritics.

That said, I just keep mine as UK and use AltGr and Compose extensively.

¹ Standard Basque does not use diacritics (or about twenty percent of the Latin alphabet for that matter)

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Hipsters indeed

A friend of mine who teaches at a European School (ie an EB one, not just a school in Europe) says they use Luxembourg keyboards because they are the most convenient for English, French and German. I'm happy with AltGr + [ or ; or ' or # for my accent needs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

I didn't even know there was a specific Luxembourg layout, so learned something new.

That said, I have returned to the QWERTY layout, on a Mac it's easy to reach characters like š or é by just holding the key longer and that's enough for my needs. However, I will look up that Lux layout for reference - always good to know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

> reach characters like š or é

In Linux those are (UK layout): AltGr+@, s; and AltGr+;, e — respectively. In both cases, the first sequence are dead keys (meaning it won't print anything out until you type the next character).

If you use them regularly, you just remember those sequences (or you can buy a keyboard with those printed on the key caps).

Otherwise, you reach for the Compose key:

Compose, c, s = š

Compose c, z = ž (this is basically Polish vs Czech orthography)

Compose, (apostrophe), e = é

Etc

The beauty of the compose key is that you don't really need to remember (or know) the keystrokes. You just try something that you think "makes sense" and there's a good chance it'll work.

[rnturn]

Re: Hipsters indeed

Indeed. I use it to remap the upper right button on my wireless Kensington Expert Mouse to be the middle button. Without that I'm forced to try MB1/MB2 chording (which I always seemed to botch).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

That's all fine and dandy with QWERTY, but other layouts have a caps lock that works differently.

On AZERTY (hang on, cough, spit), "caps" lock is more like the original "shift" lock as it also acts on numbers. On QWERTY, you still have to use shift to get to the characters above the numbers such as #, with AZERTY you do not. Mainly because numbers require shift to access unless you have a numerical pad.

Ergo removal may still take a while..

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Hipsters indeed

I have honestly never quite understood the modern key placement of the Caps Lock key to the left of the A key

The caps lock key inherited its position, via electric typewriter keyboard layouts, from manual typewriters. Examine the Shift/Caps Lock mechanism on a manual typewriter and it should become obvious to you it why it is the way it is. (With modern technology, there is no need for it to stay that way -- you can remap keys under Unix and Linux.)

IMNSHO, ${DEITY} and Stallman got it wrong, whereas IBM got it right with their 101-key AT keyboard.

With dual Control (and Shift and Alt) keys placed symmetrically beside the spacebar, multiple, simultaneous key usage is much-easier for me. I can use one hand to work Shift/Control/Alt etc., and the other hand to hit the modified key ("s", "F1", etc.).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hipsters indeed

> ${DEITY} and Stallman

Why the tautology?

[m4r35n357]

"I am sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's my character."

Gnome Wreckers, behold MY middle digit. Fuckwits

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome is a shit show

and has been since V3.0 emerged from the slime. There is a reason why Cinnamon is so popular.

[m4r35n357]

Re: Gnome is a shit show

Contrast Gnome v1 and Enlightenment - non rectangular windows (with holes in!) & lots of other cool stuff.

[druck]

Re: "I am sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's my character."

Everywhere you look there are fuckwits trying to enshittify every single piece of software, from this madness in Gnome, Wayland not supporting vital X11 features, to idiots porting command line tools to Rust and silently ignoring options they couldn't be bothered implementing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold on - something wrong here

Isn't the whole point of Linux that you can set it up how you like ?

[m4r35n357]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

Yep, and I am becoming increasingly worried that XFCE will succumb to the "defecate on Linux/Unix" crowd (systemd, wayland, adwaita etc.).

So I have recently manage to dig up my old FVWM config, which I will probably breathe fresh life into this summer.

I also recently found this REALLY good in-depth video introduction series for i3, which is another good solution for keyboard fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1I63wGcvU4

The final option - mirror your favourite distro/architecture locally (including installation media), BEFORE it turns to excrement.

[Rich 2]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

I’ve used i3 almost exclusively for years. There’s nothing not to like

[coredump]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

I still recall using Twm for many (!) years on SunOS Sun4 and SPARC1 kit, with X11 compiled from src.

While I wouldn't care to go that exact X11 route again, I'm pretty sure I could return to Twm or it's progeny without much trouble. E.g. NetBSD ships Ctwm and it's also in FreeBSD ports if I ever felt the need to move away from beloved XFCE for some reason.

My desktop is a bunch of yellow-on-black XTerm-alikes in a few switchable workspaces and a browser in one or two of them; essentially like working with a bunch of VT100's but only 1 keyboard plus a mouse for context switching. I've not really moved very far beyond the 90's. :-)

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

I'm kind of liking KDE Neon. It can be set to have proper title bars WINDOW BORDERS! and stuff. If Mate has to die, this will do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

KDE is great

[graemep]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

It is the point of Linux, but not of Gnome.

Gnome is a very opinionated DE these days, but there are plenty of more customisable alternatives if its not what you want. Gnome is the Apple of DEs - they will decide what is best for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

The Apple of DEs, but without any UI design ability.

[nijam]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

> ... they will decide what is best for you.

You mean "they will decide, without the slightest level of understanding or any attempt to acquire such, what is best for them."

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

"Isn't the whole point of Linux that you can set it up how you like ?"

Quite. Even Gnome, if you like the direction they're heading. They just need to realise they're one among many several.

[coredump]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

Yes, of course. Well, as long as you like the same things as GNOME devs. And any other dev artist-wannabe who feels obligated to inflict their creation and remove your choice.

[Cheshire Cat]

Re: Hold on - something wrong here

This is the reason I stopped using Chrome -- the UI configurability disappeared, and you're left with only the way they want you to do it.

If you want to have middle-button paste then it should be possible; it doesn't make sense to remove functionality just because YOU don't use it.

[alain williams]

Yet another reason to stick with Mate

aka Gnome-II and eschew Gnome-III+

[m4r35n357]

Re: Yet another reason to stick with Mate

No hiding place . . .

(from "What’s new in MATE 1.28")

"MATE 1.28 has made significant strides in updating the codebase, including the removal of deprecated libraries and ensuring compatibility with the latest GTK versions. One of the most notable improvements is the enhanced support for Wayland, bringing us closer to a fully native MATE-Wayland experience. Several components have been updated to work seamlessly with Wayland, ensuring a more integrated and responsive desktop environment."

These guys are psychotic, they will hunt you down.

[graemep]

I love this feature. It is the fastest way to copy paste with mouse selection.

Gnome has for many years been becoming more touch screen focused. I think maybe the future of the big Linux DEs is KDE for keyboard and mouse users and big screen and Gnome for touch screens.

Cosmic is a possible challenger, and there are many other options but those are more niche.

[m4r35n357]

Cosmic looks interesting, but being new & "cool" will almost certainly attract the love of the "defecators" before it can produce anything worth forking.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

I love this feature. It is the fastest way to copy paste with mouse selection.

Of course it is, because it pastes the text al opposed to the text+formatting which when taken from another source will almost certainly not match the document you are writing.

Presumably whoever decided that would be the default will end up in the same part of hell as the chap proposing this new misfeature.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Filing bug reports to further enshittification

What a world we live in.

[Joe W]

Re: Filing bug reports to further enshittification

I do have words for that person, not ones I would be willing to share openly as some might be actionable.

Just because I'm not on asocial media doesn't mean I don't exist or my opinion is not valid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Filing bug reports to further enshittification

Hopefully he makes fewer typos in his code than in his prose.

[nijam]

Re: Filing bug reports to further enshittification

> Hopefully he makes fewer typos in his code than in his prose.

Actually, I hope his code is just as bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Filing bug reports to further enshittification

> Hopefully he makes fewer typos in his code than in his prose.

I get he claims he's dyslexic (self diagnosed, of course). He even has pronouns in his profile.

[John_Ericsson]

Good on the community. MS users have to reach over to the co-pilot key, Linux users can now use the middle mouse button. 2026 the year of Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun fact

Copilot key doesn't have a dedicated keycode, it's just a macro for shift+super+F23. To use it on linux, you have to create a virtual keycode that filters out that specific combination.

[RockBurner]

If it ain't broke....

I've never understood the mentality of removing (as opposed to just disabling it) something just because you don't use it.

As above - by all means disable it, so those of us who do use it can re-enable and use it, but why "remove" it? I can't see the code for this being a massive bloaty chunk of binary that would make any difference to the file size of the OS download, so why strip it? There's far bigger chunks of code that could be optimised, I'm sure.

This definitely smacks of "I've got the power, I'm going to use it", which I suppose it all the rage these days.... <sigh>

[vtcodger]

Re: If it ain't broke....

"This definitely smacks of "I've got the power, I'm going to use it"

More like "My way or the Highway". Fine by me. The highway it shall be.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: If it ain't broke....

"I can't see the code for this being a massive bloaty chunk of binary"

Unlike, say, embedding the icon set in the library that draws part of the UI.

[Naich]

Re: If it ain't broke....

The proposal is to have it not enabled by default. The proposal is not to remove it, but don't let details stop everyone from getting their pitchforks out.

[Tom66]

Re: If it ain't broke....

The PR just changes it so by default it's not enabled. It can be re-enabled, although it's not clear if that will be UI or config file editing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If it ain't broke....

> The PR just changes it so by default it's not enabled

Which goes contrary to every principle of product (not even specifically software) development out there, as the kid would know if he had had any proper training and education.

Just because people *may* be volunteering their time (which is not clear that's what this idiot does) it doesn't mean that you can use it to write crap.

[DevOpsTimothyC]

Re: If it ain't broke....

Technically they are disabling rather than removing.

They are changing the default behaviour from enabled to disabled.

The thing is we all know how this sort of thing goes

1) Disabled by default hidden away under dconf cli option (not through any gui options).

2) Anyone who uses dconf to "hack" the DE is bad and should be ignored

2a) dconf to re-enable is not reported/ tracked

3) Remove legacy / unused feature

The funny thing is the Gnome project are the ones who copied it to Wayland

[Sitaram Chamarty]

every time...

...I hear *anything* about Gnome, I feel glad for the boss who gave me a less powerful laptop at a time when I *may* have chosen Gnome but was forced to use LXDE (then XFCE). If that boss had given me a decent laptop I'd probably have used Gnome ... **shudder**

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: every time...

It's OK, with any luck you'd have grown out of it.

[BasicReality]

Maybe someone should push a PR to remove that dev from the project?

Seriously, I've been a longtime Linux user, recently changed to Mac, stuck on Windows for my work computer. It's a really useful feature I've missed on other OS's.

I think Gnome devs stopped caring about most users, they have their own ideas and everyone else is wrong. I hope that more distros will wake up and move to other platforms. I've been on KDE for a while, just haven't got around to reinstalling PopOS! yet on my Linux laptop, but looking forward to trying their new desktop.

[Doctor Syntax]

Maybe he's Agent P 2.0 and dickering for a gig at microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Maybe he's Agent P 2.0 and dickering for a gig at microsoft.

That was Miguel about twenty years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

LUXURY GNOME

The GNOME desktop as ever is passe.

Time to think LUXURY, something more stylish and fashionable. Perhaps MORNING STAR or BLACK BIRD themed.

ANONYMOUS WE ARE LEGION

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: LUXURY GNOME

Whatever you're on, best check if you got the dosage right.

:)

[Syn3rg]

Re: LUXURY GNOME

We are legion; we are Bob.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: LUXURY GNOME

> Perhaps MORNING STAR or BLACK BIRD themed.

I am familiar with Morning Star but no idea who the other guys are, or what its relevance to the subject at hand could possibly be.

[nematoad]

Opinionated and badly spelt.

Marshall McLuhan had it right when he said "The media is the message."

Poor spelling, inattention to punctuation and general carelessness in writing conveys much more than the actual words.

Why should anyone listen to someone who cannot even express themselves in a coherent manner?

[Androgynous Cupboard]

Re: Opinionated and badly spelt.

Steady on. English might not be his first language, he might in a hurry, or like me he might be typing on a shitty phone keyboard. Yet he who is without sin, etc.

[Rob Daglish]

Re: Opinionated and badly spelt.

Sorry, no.

Regardless of what keyboard I'm using, be it phone/tablet touchscreen, my mechanical marvel, any of my laptops or the bluetooth behemoths that I travel around with, I manage to find time to check that my spelling, punctuation and grammar are as I was taught.

Even if I'm in a hurry, I make time to check my own work - anything else detracts from the quality of the message that I want to impart to other people, and quite frankly poor spelling like that shown in the snippets quoted in the article makes me question the ability of the person writing it. Especially in such a detail-orientated field such as coding.

[Richard 12]

Re: Opinionated and badly spelt.

One can be in a hurry in instant messaging or silly fora like this one.

One cannot however be in a rush when suggesting adding or removing a feature from software with an absolutely massive user base.

Spelling errors there make it very obvious that you've not thought about the proposal at all, and it should be rejected out of hand. Every way of writing there has a built-in spellchecker, use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Opinionated and badly spelt.

> Spelling errors there make it very obvious that you've not thought about the proposal at all

Besides, it's basic courtesy and decorum, a bit like not taking the bus in your underwear. It shows respect for other people.

[Chris Gray 1]

Can't remember keys...

I use the center-click multiple times a day. Did the ctrl-c/ctrl-v stuff even work on things like early SunOs? I hate that method because my horrible memory for plain facts makes it hard for me to remember the keys. Is "c" Cut or Copy? "v" for paste???? I get sooo frustrated the very small number of times I have to use Windows - *nothing* makes sense, so trying to remember them is extremely difficult for me, based on the one or two times a year I need them.

Gahh. Don't get old. :/)

El Reg needs an icon for frustrated old guy!

[phuzz]

Re: Can't remember keys...

ctrl+c and ctrl+v isn't a Windows invention, it's been around for much longer than that, I remember using it on the Amiga (well, technically it was a different key combo, but still used c and v).

Wikipedia tells me it came from Xerox Parc (unsurprising, about 50% of modern computing was invented there), so it predates Sun by a while.

Here's your frustrated old guy image ;) >>>>>>

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Can't remember keys...

The Windows clipboard shortcuts are Ctrl+Insert for copy, Shift+Delete for cut, Shift+Insert for paste. However, MS observed that Macs didn't have a proper keyboard and so Ctrl+C and friends were used there. Cross platform stuff like Word and Excel supported both because frankly it was (and still is) utterly trivial to do that whereas expecting users to re-train muscle memory was (and still is) the height of absurdity. (Obviously only one of the shortcuts could be advertised on the right-hand side of each menu command, but both were supported.)

In an early case of enshittification (a word that my phone's predictive text does not appear to know) the Windows 3.1 team choose to advertise the Mac shortcuts on Windows.

[david 12]

Re: Can't remember keys...

[ctrl] k b Begin Block

[ctrl] q d End of Line

[ctrl] k e End Block

[ctrl] k c Copy Block

....

[ctrl] k V paste

For moving around, the "wordstar diamond' (CTRL s,d,e,x)

Worked even better with IBM Model F keyboards (CTRL where caps lock is now). The Model F keyboard was the killer feature of IBMs expensive and otherwise unimpressive PC/XT computers.

[Liam Proven]

Re: Can't remember keys...

> Is "c" Cut or Copy? "v" for paste????

How to remember it:

X is cut, because X looks like an open pair of scissors.

V is paste, because it looks like a downwards-pointing arrowhead: "put the thing in the clipboard HERE"

The one that's left over is C for copy.

Z is Undo -- because Z is the last thing in the alphabet, and Z undoes the last thing you did.

Also note that in the QWERTY arrangement used in the country that designed this stuff, they are the 4 keys next to each other that begin the bottom row, next to the Control or Command key you're holding down with your little ("pinkie") finger.

There _is_ logic to this.

[Chris Gray 1]

Re: Can't remember keys...

Thanks, I've cut-n-pasted that from Firefox to a file in Gnu emacs. Had to select menu COPY in Firefox since its not the same clipboard as XTerms use (which is what I run emacs in - I don't want to waste space on a menu bar), and then the usual middle-button click to paste into the emacs buffer.

But, the two kinds of windows I use most are XTerms and Gnu Emacs in an xterm, and those keys do not do those things in either place. :/)

I similarly have a file on my Windows laptop's desktop telling how to use the trackpad - after, errrr, about 50 years of extensive mouse and keyboard use, my fingers just don't work on trackpads. Oh, and did I grumble about the lack of key travel and compressed keyboards on laptops? The windows laptop is faster than this deskside computer, but using external monitor, keyboard, and mouse sounds rather silly. Oh, I mostly use it for running WSL2... not sure what that runs, but X stuff works.

[Dan 55]

Re: Can't remember keys...

Ctrl-Y or Ctrl-Shift-Z could be redo. Choose wisely, if you get it wrong then maybe you lose the redo buffer...

[Not Yb]

Re: Can't remember keys...

I'll just note that one of the comments on the Firefox bug has probably explained the real reason behind this.

Theory is that the developer pushing for this change accidentally hit middle-mouse-paste, and pasted something very private, into the wrong chat. That makes it a 'breaking bug' for that particular dev, but not for those who use it.

Seems reasonable, but maybe, just maybe, he had a better reason than "I made a mistake when I first learned of a feature that's existed for years"?

[Dan 55]

Re: Can't remember keys...

And now there appears to be yet another about:config setting to change in Firefox (middlemouse.paste) to make it usable after first run.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Can't remember keys...

Pretty sure it's been there for years? Or maybe I'm thinking about the one they added to choose whether or not middle click will navigate to the URL in the primary clipboard.

[khjohansen]

Re: Can't remember keys...

C is copy, X is cut! ;)

[Flocke Kroes]

Many years ago

The first time I used windows middle click paste didn't work and I asked tech support how to fix it. I am not surprised that this deficiency in Windows has not yet been fixed. How long did it take them to implement multiple desktops and desktop switching?

[RockBurner]

Re: Many years ago

"... How long did it take them to implement multiple desktops and desktop switching?"

and for a given (very low) value of "implement" at that.

[Manolo]

KDE

And that is another reason why I've been using KDE for what, twenty, twenty five years now?

Before that WindowMaker, which I still like.

[HereIAmJH]

Re: KDE

A couple decades ago I looked at Gnome, and it seemed like they copied every bad thing about Windows desktops. I have been using KDE since, but sometimes need a little GTK.

Seems like the worst was background windows stealing focus when it made sense to the background app, not the user. Nothing like suddenly typing a password into the wrong window.

[KarMann]

Re: KDE

I think I started with FVWM or similar, then went Enlightenment for a while, and then maybe 5 years of Gnome, until something in my user config go so bloated or crufty that it didn't work anymore after an upgrade, and I decided to give the KDE a try, rather than immediately try to isolate the config problem. Still on KDE now, 20-ish years later.

[Jonathan Knight]

It's still in MacOS

MacOS has kept the middle button paste for the Terminal app

Clearly they expect us oldies to be using the CLI

[Liam Proven]

Re: It's still in MacOS

> MacOS has kept the middle button paste for the Terminal app

Good heavens, I never knew that! Thank you -- TIL as the kids on Reddit say.

[Anonymous Coward]

Petridis is probably the craziest and most aggressive Gnome developer, and that's saying something. He's even shown repeated support for communists terror groups such as "antifa"

[Anonymous Coward]

My grandad was antifa. He worked for a subversive organisation called the 'Royal Air Force' about eighty years ago.

[localzuk]

Is everything that isn't ultra-capitalist "communism"? Such lazy thinking.

[samzebra]

Sounds like someone isn't getting enough attention, and/or needs a nap.

[T. F. M. Reader]

Dear KDE developerts, please leave the middle button where it is!

There probably were multiple reasons why GNOME was never attractive to me. As others here I use Linux with KDE (since KDE appeared, more or less at the same time as GNOME). It has been my main environment (and the only one I use for personal stuff) for more than 30 years.

The big reason is how superior the GUI is to anything else I ever encountered - Windows, MacOS, etc. A big part of it is the efficiency of copy/paste with middle mouse button compared to Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V (middle-button paste is particularly brillians with autoraise+focus on mouse movement - something that is at best awkward on Windows and can't possibly work on MacOS while the context-sensitive menubar exists somewhere else on the screen). I can't imagine choosing a laptop without 3 mouse buttons if it is under my control. What's the next thing you want to disable - virtual desktops? Or the extremely useful feature of maximizing windows (at least in KDE): left-click on the button maximizes to desktop size, middle-click maximizes vertically (I use it all the time), right-click - horizontally. Will that go away, too? Stop ruining my life!

And in Firefox (and other browsers) the middle button serves another killer purpose: middle-click on a link opens it in a new tab. No need to right-click to drop down a menu, just imagine! Run a search, get a list of results, go through the list, middle-click on those that look promising, then look through the tabs... Oh, I forgot: no one searches anymore, everybody just asks ChatGPT and gets a single authoritative result. Silly me!

Please let the world and its sister disregard that bloody idiot who has no use for either middle button or grammar, and ignore the stupid desktop environment he works on while we are at it. Oh, I remember now: when GNOME first appeared everybody was laughing at its very fitting logo - a FOOTPRINT!

</rant--------------->

[DanceMan]

Re: Firefox ...middle-click on a link opens it in a new tab.

Me too in XFCE

[RockBurner]

Re: Firefox ...middle-click on a link opens it in a new tab.

Seems to work in Chrome on Win11 too... who knew! :D

(well - I did know.... but I'd forgotten)

[Sok Puppette]

Gnome is and always has been shit. Since Gnome 3, it's been *irredeemable* shit.

There was never any reason for either Gnome or KDE to exist in the first place. If I'd wanted to run Windows, I would have run fucking Windows.

[Auror]

This is why I've preferred KDE for ages. Takes a bit to tweak it to be less flashy and resource hungry but lets me setup my desktop how I like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

> resource hungry

KDE is *not* resource hungry. That might have been so in the days of Qt3 but that's twenty^W thirty years ago.

[ttlanhil]

As a proud KDE user...

Compared to other full DEs (gnome, windows, whatever), no, it's not.

Compared to the DEs designed to be much more lightweight and less featureful? Sure, for users who want that, it's resource hungry by comparison

Compared to KDE of 30 years ago? The amount of RAM KDE is using today would be very expensive last millennium :)

But also... Tweaking it to be less resource hungry can mean turning off some of the 3D effects and the like - if you don't have a half-decent graphics card from the last decade, then that could well be draining on your system

[keithpeter]

Gnome does as Gnome does and there are alternatives but...

...at some point there may be an opportunity for wider adoption of a desktop/endpoint OS in large organisations as Windows and Microsoft generally may be seen as either too expensive(*), unnecessary, or a possible risk.

Checklists will be produced to govern acceptance. Accessibility as defined by various legal standards will figure in the checklists. A desktop environment hoping for wide acceptance will need to have their accessibility story in order.

(*) on a TCO basis including hardware purchase

[Cliffwilliams44]

Re: Gnome does as Gnome does and there are alternatives but...

"...at some point there may be an opportunity for wider adoption of a desktop/endpoint OS in large organisations as Windows and Microsoft generally may be seen as either too expensive(*), unnecessary, or a possible risk."

Wake up, you are having a dream!

Why won't this happen? Because the people responsible for the primary support of those desktops WILL NOT learn another desktop OS to support! This is why Macs have not infiltrated the corporate environment en-mass!

There are 2 types of people who work the primary service desk.

1. Entry level people with limited skills. The good ambitious ones don't stay there long and are replaced with more entry level people

2. The lifers! The 40-50 year old service desk tech who won't learn anything new, only knows his company systems (that all run on Windows) and pisses and cries whenever he's asked to learn a new skill!

Any cost saving on licensing will be lost once the cost of replacing these people with qualifies support staff (that is if you can find them and they WILL cost more) is factored in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing

How is it confusing, little-known, or used on accident?? The very first time you click the button, you will notice its function and immediately learn its use. Users dumb enough to not understand this are destined to become GNOME devs.

[ozone89]

Another party trick:

selecting text, then middle-clicking on the new tab icon in firefox (and likely other browsers as well), makes the browser open said tab with the selected text pasted and sent to the URL bar, thus opening the webpage if you selectedan URL, or making a search with your favourite engine.

[asgalon]

I have dumped Gnome a long, long time ago.

Switched all my linux desktops first to enlightenment and then to xfce about a decade ago.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: I have dumped Gnome a long, long time ago.

I dumped Gnome when they produced a file manager that couldn't display a directory tree because some muppet had ruled that it confuses users.

They may or may not have fixed that now but for errors that utterly, cretinously, idiotically stupid I'm afraid I don't grant second chances, so I'll never know.

[bazza]

Re: I have dumped Gnome a long, long time ago.

Even Windows displays a directory tree. And that "confuses" (or, seemingly not) people by having drive letters... Gnome (and probably SystemD too) of course tries to recreate the consequences of drive letters ("this is a completely separate device that in no way joins into any other part of your file systems"), whilst making it annoying to find the mount point...

[Richard 12]

Re: I have dumped Gnome a long, long time ago.

Even Windows doesn't really have drive letters anymore.

Everything is actually a UNC path, and it's displayed that way too - "My PC" is the parent of C, D, etc

[Fishbird]

Re: I have dumped Gnome a long, long time ago.

> file manager that couldn't display a directory tree

I had forgotten that... but now I recall how I spent ages feeling stupid that I couldn't find the config switch to get a tree view of a filesystem, which is so obviously a tree structure.

I think it was the same feeling I had until I found the hidden and undiscoverable Ctrl-L needed to access a proper path in selection dialogs.

I do wonder if Gnome is a Trojan horse designed to prevent widespread adoption of desktop Linux.

[Altrux]

Goodbye

I'm overdue to say goodbye to GNOME - this will be my final trigger. Yes, I should have done it years ago, but enough of this nonsense now. BUT, what to switch to? So many choices, but no perfect answers. KDE is too huge and over-complex, and the others are over-simplistic or a little ugly. Maybe Fedora with Cinnamon? Time to experiment...

[Will Godfrey]

Gnome? Oh yes I dimly remember that.

The first Linux desktop I had used Gnome window manager - I hated it and switched first to KDE, then quite a bit later moved to Open Box, and have stayed with it ever since. A few of the desktop programs I use rely on gtk and their gnome-ness is apparent but not entirelyt insufferable.

[DS999]

I'm fine with making it opt in

If people don't use it they shouldn't be have to be worried about having their clipboard (which may contain sensitive data) pasted into a chat session or whatever when someone fumble fingers their mouse.

But don't remove the code. Leave it as an option we can turn on in the mouse menu (or if you really feel you have to hide it) in GNOME Tweaks. It annoys me when I see useful stuff removed in the name of "simplying the code" when we have all manner of stupidity in config options for a bazillion different themes, dark mode and other nonsense. You wanna simplify, start with the eye candy floof.

[Apocalypso - a cheery end to the world]

Pot ... kettle

> The feature is also not discoverable at all

Has he not used Gnome? Oh, I forgot - he's a dev so has "discovered" all of its features by reading the source.

[Not Yb]

Re: Pot ... kettle

I suspect he "discovered" it by accidentally pasting something private into the wrong chat window.

[Basmman63]

People use Gnome ? Have been using KDE here, for 25+ years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wannabe dictator

Wow, I read two posts on his blog relating to X11 and he is an asshole. The best was his blaming a user who dared complain that vnc was broken and system corrupted by certain updates the post pertained to. Just like Agent P blaming users for not doing it right when his crap breaks people's systems with zero warning. Zero empathy and consideration for users.

[REGriff]

I gave gnome the middle finger 10+ years ago

I left gnome even before Linus Torvalds called it an unholy mess, and have been very happy about that decision every time I hear that gnome came out with another 'improvement'.

I don't really care anymore what they do, but will be very disappointed if Firefox follows their mistakes.

I have been very happy with XFCE since I switched. I came from the UNIX (Solaris) world into Linux, but I am a 30+ year user of Linux.

[TCook1943]

Re middle finmnger

I fondly recall another use for the middle digit that I feel I'd seriously like to apply to both Gnome and its creator. For me, the first choice would be KDE, followed by Mate. I'd like to clarify for Liam my alter ego, which is "the idiamin." Those with a bent for history will remember the former leader of Nigeria, who was, for me, the most pretentious and foolish man alive at the time. That he was somewhat porcine was another factor in my choice. However, I always overlooked the fact that he was a black Hitler clone as well as the most comic idiot alive at the time.

[khjohansen]

Re: Re middle finmnger

Former leader of Uganda ... but, well :>

[cbrisuda]

Good riddance

I HATE middle click paste. It’s good if one is using a mouse, but it is a major pain on laptop touchpads. It’s very easy to stray into the arbitrary middle click space. Super annoying to me

[RockBurner]

Re: Good riddance

Touchpads are the lowest form of user interface, I'd never expect decent functionality from any of them and avoid whenever possible. Apart from possibly touchscreens. <ptooi>

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Good riddance

My somewhat elderly laptop has a touch pad. I'm happy with the fact that it has never worked on any version of Linux!

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Good riddance

To my downvoter:

When you have short, fat, dry fingers a touchpad is a liability... unless you're going to keep licking your finger tips!

[Edward Ashford]

Re: Good riddance

Most of my laptops have actually had a middle click.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good riddance

> It’s very easy to stray into the arbitrary middle click space.

Fucking disable it then.

[ibmalone]

Re: Good riddance

Often disabled by default now, same goes for focus follows cursor which they also tried to bury. Basically this generation of developers grew up using Windows and it confuses them to work on a desktop that is not Windows. (MS PowerToys used to actually include focus follows mouse, and looks like people want to bring it back, https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/34382 maybe in another ten years Windows shell and Gnome will have swapped places.)

[desht]

Fuck off Gnome

That is all.

[APro]

"Little known feature" my ass!!!!

I,most of my colleagues, and our user base (mostly Linux users) use middle click paste regularly. In fact I used it to copy this articles URL from Chrome on a Mate & X11 desktop to my team's chat for discussion. I probably use it once every minute or two. I haven't used Gnome in years personally due to their developers mentality and myopic arrogance such as this, but with RedHat defaulting to only Gnome on their distribution, it's sadly still around at work. Don't even get me started on Wayland.

I remember HP 9000, Apollo workstations, SunOS 3 & 4, AIX, DEC UNIX and Xenix all had it. I hated going from UNIX three button mice to two or even one button mice when IBM PC compatibles and Apple Macs became mainstream. I used to carry around a three button mouse with 9-pin serial connection on it back in the day and enabled the middle button function when it had to be plugged into a Windows box, but sadly that beast wore out and I never really found a real equivalent. These days I use a heavy & expensive gaming mouse with a very sturdy mouse wheel and middle clicking is easy (many cheap mice with middle click wheels end up scrolling when trying to click).

[drankinatty]

The "Gnome way or the highway" is what is wrong with Linux

This is the epitome of the arrogance of the Gnome developers. Not only do they take ownership and break toolkits that belong to Gimp, they MS, for lack of better words, Linux itself, forcing unasked for features down user's throats while destroying functionality. That's why I stopped using qnome after gnome 2. But this behavior by the gnome-devs not only alienates gnome users, but generally has a bleed-over effect on Linux as a whole. Between freedesktop.,org and gnome.org, Linux acceptance has likely been set back by decades, plural, as the infighting and breaks with backwards compatibility became the norm in both camps.

Linux was founded on "user choice". The "my way or the highway" attitude never succeeds in growing of building anything beyond closed-source corporate profits. Sad, but not surprising, to see gnome, as the organization, bring that to open-source. As a nearly three-decade Linux user, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

[PaulHayes]

What?! No, at least make it a configurable option to have it on or off, even if it's off by default so I can turn it back on again.

I use middle-click-paste in Gnome all the time, probably 20+ times a day every day. It drives me mad using a different type of computer when it doesn't have middle-click-paste.

Linux should be about choice not forcing a single person's opinions onto the entire user base.

[PaulHayes]

Ok so now I've actually read the merge request for this the proposal is simply to make it default off and can be turned back on again. I'm fine with that...

"gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-enable-primary-paste true"

[coredump]

I guess that meets the strict definition of configurable. Not quite like a menu selector or button toggle though, eh?

I like the commandline as much as any greybeard, so maybe I'm just doing it wrong (I haven't really used Gnome since v2) but I suspect it'd take me a few tries and probably some websearching to work out that combination.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm fine with that

That is breaking a ~40 year old interaction mechanism that is well-known to users and incredibly useful for no foreseeable gain whatsoever.

The way something like this would be done is, if it has been determined, via proper user testing that it is desirable and economically permissible to make such behaviour configurable (which it already is, just edit xmodmap) then you would default it to its current, well-known state and, the first time a user activates the behaviour, you would present a one-off dialogue explaining what it does and how it can be configured or disabled. That's the proper, user friendly, professional way of doing these things. It's just that this kid is clearly just a loser.

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME does seem to attract…

…more than its fair share of weirdos.

At least Microsoft employee Miguel de Icaza (which is another one of those bizarre people that come to mind) was a competent developer and a mature person.

I cannot stand gnome. I had proof that gnome is a Microsoft ploy to drive people away from Linux. I was given the evidence by one of my abductors while I was being probed in the mothership. Unfortunately, said evidence was dislodged and accidentally flushed after a night out followed by a particularly characterful curry.

In summary, I don't know why gnome couldn't recruit normal people like me rather than those weirdos.

[JulieM]

Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

Dragging over text with the left button held down, then positioning the mouse over another text entry element and pressing the middle button is how you paste text!

It was bad enough when they decided it wasn't good enough for a text entry to begin accepting text straight away, as soon as the mouse pointer was over it, and you had to click on before you could begin entering text.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal has it as a feature, but with right click instead of middle. Highlight text, middle click = copy. No highlight = paste.

Sorry it's a growing feature, not some X11 wart that people are trying to get rid of.

[ibmalone]

Circular, lazy and ignorant

I've given up tying to engage with those people long ago. There's no way to stop them and attempting to debate rationally runs headlong into groupthink and the good old standby of "write ti yourself if you want" (no thank you, I'm not Linus, from the point of view of desktops I'm a user, and for the people who are funded to do these things maybe they could consider what their users want).

Particularly love this:

"The feature is also not discoverable at all, and even on the Freedesktop wiki page, the entirity [sic] of the "PRIMARY" selection is refferred [sic] to as an "easter egg"."

Because that Freedesktop entry is not documentation, it dates back to an earlier phase of the same crowd wanting to remove it, got kickback, realised they had to describe the feature and decided to include a bad faith against it. As I've said previously, if you think it's an "Easter egg" then document it. The concept of "discoverable" relies on a really fuzzy idea that users somehow know in advance how to use software they haven't used before. From a Linux desktop point of view the only way to have a chance at that would be to straight out copy MS Windows, but they prefer not to acknowledge this is basically talking about copying already familiar interfaces and instead believe that there's some natural aptitude for a particular interface (without realising that they actually mean the interface they're already familiar with).

Of course if "discoverable" actually meant "able to be discovered" (without recourse to manuals) then, "This is a little known feature and behavior that leads into user confusion when they click the middle mouse button without knowing about its functionality." would seem to be the very definition of discoverable. Another middle mouse button feature that is not "discoverable" (i.e. you somehow know it if you don't already know it) and should presumably should be removed is middle click to close on tabs (common across many applications). Wait till they find out what the right hand mouse button does...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Circular, lazy and ignorant

> "The feature is also not discoverable at all"

How does that wanker know about it then?

[franzi]

What about the middle mouses other functionality?

I've only switched to linux since a year. One thing that really annoyed me was the middle click functionality.

I have 2 browser-behaviours that got broken due to it:

1) Middle mouse on a website to summon "Scroll-Mode"

2) Ctrl+Click equivalent (open a link in a new tab by middle-mouse clicking)

I changed the behaviour in firefox, so I've got the best of both world I guess, I'm just wondering if anybody else was irritated by those things missing.

[Gulraj Rijhwani]

Re: What about the middle mouses other functionality?

You switched to a different operating system, and got annoyed that it didn't follow the paradigm of the proprietary operating system you chose to leave...

Erm, OK.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What about the middle mouses other functionality?

> 2) Ctrl+Click equivalent (open a link in a new tab by middle-mouse clicking)

That *does* work in Firefox (middle clicking on a link to open it on a new tab, or middle clicking on a tab with a URL in the primary selection to open it) but it was hidden behind a configuration flag by default because some other idiot complained about it.

[Ompaul]

And they wonder

Why does anyone use gnome, I've not since v3:came out.

I'm happy in my sixties to use KDE.

It's on Debian sid ... Maybe request Debian drops gnome?

Gnome went too far a long time ago.

[quantumduck]

confusion?

> ... behavior that leads into user confusion when they click the middle mouse button without knowing about its functionality.

name ANY function that doesn't lead to confusion when a user invokes it unknowingly.

[Apocalypso - a cheery end to the world]

Re: confusion?

> name ANY function that doesn't lead to confusion when a user invokes it unknowingly.

NOP ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes me sad

At least this video always cheers me up: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Oo-TlZriBs0

[t0m5k1]

Gnome is not your desktop!

It never will be your desktop either.

It's their creation that allow you to use, updates do and will continue to break changes you make. Themes, plugins, etc are all seen as non-standard and so are never a concern for them and will never be thought about when the next version is made.

Glad I binned off Gnome when they binned off classic mode.

Hyprland or xfce is all I use/need now, can't wait for the time I can bin off other straggler apps made by gnome.

[Blackjack]

GNOME, from lighter that KDE to father of many forks cause using mainline GNOME has become worse and worse over the years.

[Gulraj Rijhwani]

Ludicrous

Just an act of anti-X11 religious vandalism. I will never comprehend the mindset that justifies removing useful (and *used*) functionality. The argument that it causes confusion is completely bogus. It is rewarding ignorance. *All* controls are unintuitive until they are learned. It's why we don't just let people loose on the road in mechanised vehicles, and why carpenters spend time learning their trade. You have to learn the controls and habits to fully use the tools at your disposal. I'm just glad my desktop is not encumbered by Gnome.

Granted "we have always done it that way" is not a valid justification for doing something if it is not useful, but "we have always done it that way because it helps" damned well is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ludicrous

> *All* controls are unintuitive until they are learned

You do not know how true that is until you see someone trying to operate a light switch or turn a door handle for the first time.

Being a bit of a colonial relic, I have seen both, and it was a true eye opener.

[Anonymous Coward]

This behaviour has ALWAYS been configurable

But this so-called "developer" probably hasn't heard of xmodmap.

Which does not reflect particularly well on the Gnome crowd.

[Henry Wertz 1]

Re: This behaviour has ALWAYS been configurable

"But this so-called "developer" probably hasn't heard of xmodmap."

*x*modmap? Oh you know Wayland will have none of that. (But seriously, I agree with you -- if one really does want that middle mouse button to be a useless lump instead of having a fast and convient way to cut and paste, then configure it that way if you really want to.)

[Henry Wertz 1]

Glad I'm using KDE, and keep your hands off Firefox!

Title says it -- this change to Gnome makes me glad I use KDE. And keep your hands off Firefox! Who the crap cares if select and middle-click is "discoverable". It's great! Like, why would I usually select text? To copy it. What do you do with text you've selected? Paste it. So why should I have to pick "copy" off a menu, then "paste" off a second menu -- so clunky! But it's there if you want. Also, what is the point, are they planning to use the middle-click for something else? No? So then why just have a dead mouse button.

Also, not that I've had reason too very often, but a handful of times I've had cases where it was convenient to have two different things to paste. So I could middle-click to paste one, and do the clunky paste (or press control-V) to paste the other.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Glad I'm using KDE, and keep your hands off Firefox!

> I've had cases where it was convenient to have two different things to paste.

If you spend any time copy pasting username + passwords, coordinate pairs, filenames and content, or anything else that comes naturally in pairs, the various, immediately accessible clipboards are a must.

On KDE, one can also easily assign shortcuts (such as Meta+Z / Meta+Shift+Z) to select the next / previous item in the clipboard history. Useful when dealing with things that come naturally in trios or quadruples.

[Henry Wertz 1]

Re: Glad I'm using KDE, and keep your hands off Firefox!

>On KDE, one can also easily assign shortcuts (such as Meta+Z / Meta+Shift+Z) to select the next / previous item in the clipboard history.

No kidding. That might be worth trying out!

[JulieM]

Re: Glad I'm using KDE, and keep your hands off Firefox!

I do that all the time in Konsole, when (e.g.) I'm assembling a command or SQL query by pasting a bunch of things into it!

I'll copy what goes between two things using ctrl+insert (to paste with shift+insert); then highlight each of them in turn with a left-drag (to paste with a middle-click). The shift+del/ctrl+ins/shift+ins and highlight/middle-click paste buffers are independent of each other, so the separating phrase doesn't get lost each time.