At Sat, 25 Jul 2020 01:17:16 +1000 Adam Nielsen <a.niel...@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@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 hel...@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services _______________________________________________ xorg@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
