i dont understand why this is a conversation. shouldnt we just have the option to turn it on and off?
The option is there, the news is that GNOME changed the default value.
ah ok. thanks
From time to time I have to be reminded that this exists.
It can be re-enabled with the following command (source is the Merge Request linked in the article):
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-enable-primary-paste true
Can imagine some distros will override the GNOME default here.
That’s the real linux user story.
We come for the speed, flexibility, FOSS values … but we STAY for the middle mouse paste.
Awful, one of the first things I disable along side 1 click folder opening.
I don’t understand how one can accidentally paste with the middle-click, but I can see in this thread that it happens. I was very much against this change but now I need to see stats. Are there any?
I use a lot of graphics programs which use middle click drag to pan around. Figma for example constantly pastes whatever random text I forgot is in my clipboard
Happens all the time.
Why is this a thing? I’ve never wanted a feature less…
Because it is awesome. So useful, and fast.
Middle paste, like many features, can be used to increase productivity. It’s normal. A better question would be why doesn’t Windows have it? It makes no sense to dumb down Linux to the level of Windows, just when people are leaving Windows because the user experience is so bad. Sure, make it an option in Settings. So people can continue to use it if they want. But there are many things worth utilising to save clicks on both Windows and Linux. Get to know them, if you want to get on with things.
People can’t and won’t use it because it sucks. Middle mouse click is for two things:
- open in a new tab
- scroll/pan
See how they’re both navigation related? Because the mouse is a navigation tool, not a text tool.
A keyboard is a text tool, all pasting should reside on the keyboard. Eagle-eyed readers may notice that there are actually letters on all the buttons they keep mashing at random, those letters are a hint that the keyboard may be used for text-related operations.
Windows sucks now, but it won desktops for a very good reason initially and as Linux is making inroads into personal computing, there are no reasons it can’t learn lessons from why that was the case.
Old Linux GUIs suck and the user experience in general absolutely sucks on anything before Debian 8. Gnome classic was nuked because it sucked, and new Gnome was an improvement in every way, and it was only very recently that KDE got to a similar level of polish.
No one is saying the feature should be completely removed, just like KDE’s insane defaults of “Peek at desktop” in the bottom right instead of “minimize all windows”, it just needs to be hidden somewhere because 99% of users don’t expect a computer to work this way and with good reason.
Leave the legacy toggle in for people who cut their teeth on OSes made by companies that went bankrupt shortly after making them and expect all computers to work like that until the end of time.
Heck - just for them, create a separate clipboard that always holds the user’s nudes and dedicate left mouse click to a shortcut that emails them to their dad for all I care, because it’s how it worked on a random hack of AmigaOS they used in the 1800s, I don’t care, just leave us out of it.
I like my middle paste, so long as it isn’t gone for good I’m happy. Having 2 clipboards is also nice
I use middle click paste all the time, but the title is misleading and clickbaity. At least on GNOME’s side they’re discussing about disabling it by default, not completely. While this is annoying as long as the setting isn’t going away I’m fine with that and I understand the reasoning behind it.
Reminds me of LWN and the end of the Rust experiment.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally pasted random private stuff from that goddamn middle click into WEB PAGES! Things that can read whatever text you type without having to explicitly submit anything. It’s a horrible thing for a new user to discover by accident. It’s such an unexpected feature to new users, and no one gets told about it, ever. You simply discover it by accident.
This is a good change, not having it on by default.
To all the haters of this idea, god forbid we make Linux less weird by default for people migrating from Windows.
All that said, I have learned to love select-to-copy and middle-click paste. Especially in the terminal.
This. Only correct comment in the entire thread. Rest are people who probably don’t even use computers and have no idea what a mouse is.
Until this article I didn’t even know you could middle-click paste.
I’ve done it countless times by mistake in Discord when trying to scroll through a channel…
Highlight->Middle paste has been my friend for decades now. Using it from SunOS in the 90-s to now has been a great feature. It’s the quickest way to copy and paste while I’m working fast with text or data entry.
I love having both clipboards be functional. The latest rounds of tools that have stopped being as compatible with it has been no end of problems in my workflow. I’ll copy with the keyboard, highlight some text and then paste both clipboards somewhere else.
No, using the keyboard here isn’t as fast, don’t bother making that argument, especially since ctrl-c means different things in different places on Unix style systems. Left hand stays home row while the right is forced to leave for the mouse since it’s a GUI.
I’ve had to deal with many tools that don’t respect keyboard cut/paste as well. Add in that some tools like putty or git bash on windows have ctrl-ins for paste?
Panning in CAD/design is usually click and hold middle or even a two button system (freecad), so trying to take a middle click for that isn’t buying uniformity.
The copy/paste world is already fractured enough. Keep the highlight/middle click working so we can go fast. I might be a dinosaur, but I’m a fast dinosaur.
reading these comments had me wondering if i was the only dinosaur around. lol
TIL middle mouse paste.
There’s nothing to discuss. Just disable that shit already.
I discovered this feature on my 1st Linux distro in early 2000s, was like “Huh, that’s interesting” then tried Ctrl+V, and then adopted both into my daily workflow. Whenever Bitwarden autofill doesn’t work or unavailable by the site security settings, I copy my pass into the clipboard and select my username and paste both in a single action
I occasionally use middle mouse paste, but I switched my partner over from Windows recently and they were used to scrolling by holding MMB and dragging which seems to be the default on Windows…
I expected there to be a toggle to turn off middle mouse paste but there just wasn’t. I had to go into multiple different places to disable it and enable autoscroll for all their apps. I ended up installing a hacky tool that would just clear the clipboard whenever MMB was pressed.
If anything can make this process easier, I’m all for it.
Don’t you touch my middle paste!
