Suggestion for Xorg / about middle-mouse click pasting

[Robert Heller]

At Sat, 25 Jul 2020 01:17:16 +1000 Adam Nielsen <a.nielsen at shikadi.net> wrote:

> 
> > I'm writing to suggest that Xorg's middle-mouse pasting should be an
> > optional feature, not an unchangeable behavior.
> 
> Where are you seeing this Xorg behaviour?  If I run "xev" and click the
> middle mouse button, I only see a "button 2 pressed" event, I don't see
> any events relating to the clipboard.
> 
> I don't think Xorg sends any clipboard events by default?  Please
> correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like Xorg isn't the source of this
> issue.
> 
> > Say for example a user is writing a document, scrolling through it,
> > and accidentally pastes text without knowing it.
> > The pasted text might contain sensitive/private information.
> > The user submits the document somewhere, and people read it.
> > It's more likely than you think.
> 
> For what it's worth, I have been scrolling through documents for decades
> and never once pasted anything by accident with the middle click.  It
> sounds like your mouse is faulty as every mouse I have ever used has
> required considerable effort to actuate the middle mouse button, to the
> point that I have once disassembled my mouse and replaced the
> microswitch in it for the mouse wheel to make it easier to press.
> 
> > This isn't simply a matter of mouse scroll wheels that click too
> > easily. Laptop touchpads are known to paste accidentally too.
> 
> I've also used a touchpad for a long time and never managed to get it
> to paste anything.  I didn't even know I could get it to emit a
> middle-click!
> 
> I'm not saying this is a non-issue, just that I think you are
> overestimating the number of people affected by it.
> 
> > Solution:
> > Middle-mouse pasting would be great as a setting that can be
> > enabled/disabled by 'xset' on the command line.
> 
> As far as I know, Xorg doesn't ascribe any special behaviour to the
> middle mouse button, and leaves it up to applications themselves.
> Middle-click pasting has become a defacto standard, with every
> application implementing this independently.
> 
> This means that I don't think there is a way you can completely disable
> middle-click pasting, other than configuring every program that uses it
> to stop doing it, using whatever way they decided to do it when they
> implemented their custom middle-button event handler.  For toolkits like
> GTK you can probably toggle it in one place and affect a whole bunch of
> programs, but it looks like it will always require individual programs
> to be configured manually.
> 
> > I would bet that desktop linux distros would disable middle-mouse
> > pasting by default, if they could.
> 
> They already can for many applications but they don't because so many
> people like this feature.  Firefox disabled opening URLs on a
> middle-click by default for example, but it's one of the first options
> I go in and turn back on when using a fresh install because it's so
> convenient.
> 
> > Many users are new to Linux, and are used to absent-mindedly clicking
> > the scroll wheel while scrolling.
> > Hardcore coders can always re-enable the feature via 'xset'.
> 
> They will soon learn to stop this behaviour :)  Linux is and always has
> been aimed at very technical people, so if you start dumbing it down for
> the masses you will get a lot of criticism.  People switch to Linux
> precisely because it doesn't treat you like a simpleton, and sure most
> people will tell you the transition was hard and there was a huge
> amount to learn, but now they've gotten used to it they appreciate why
> things are the way they are.
> 
> It might be tough to kick your idle middle-clicking habit, but if you
> can do it, you'll eventually wonder how you ever managed without
> middle-click pasting!

Indeed.  Almost all of the mice I have ever owned have three buttons and 
almost all don't have a scroll-wheel -- I use the middle button for pasting 
all of the time (and hate it when programs disable or don't implement middle 
button pasting).  I won't use a touch pad (and disabled the touch pad on my 
Lenovo thinkpad in the BIOS -- it does have a point-stick with *three* 
buttons).  I even built a *three-button* thumb-stick with a Teensy3.5 for a 
portable computer I am building.  I have *never* used either MS-Windows (two 
button mouse) or MacOS (one button mouse).  I have *always* used three button 
mice with UNIX and Linux workstations. We are talking about 40+ years 
experience and *I* never had mysterious middle button pastes.

It is unfortunate that plain 3-button mice are no-longer available (I've not 
seen them anywhere).  (Maybe there are few in an old wearhouse somewhere, 
keeping company with a few DEC LK-450 keyboards.)

> 
> Cheers,
> Adam.
> _______________________________________________
> xorg at lists.x.org: X.Org support
> Archives: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg
> Info: https://lists.x.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
> Your subscription address: %(user_address)s
> 
>                        
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services