koldfront

Copy/Paste #ui #x

Now that GNOME has disabled the middle mouse button pasting, I am left wondering what clicking the middle mouse button does instead by default?

How do you paste with the mouse in GNOME now?

Is that a keyboard-only activity?

So I literally have to move my hand from they keyboard to pick up the mouse, select the text I want to copy, move the mouse to where I want to paste it, and then move my hand from the mouse back to the keyboard, to use the keyboard shortcut for paste, that I must have memorized?

Or do all programs have to implement a context menu with a "Paste" option? How does that option distinguish between the primary selection and the clipboard?

Maybe you middle click the menu entry?

I can hear some, surely fictional, people shouting "there should be no primary selection vs. clipboard, people can only hold one thing in their brain, the copy buffer should be the same"

I have been using X since 1993 and Linux since 1994, so to me it is just habit that there are two different places, and I use the difference actively. It sometimes annoys me, but it would annoy me more to not have them.

When I get a new student helper (who get to/have to work on a laptop with Linux), I explain it like this: "If you select something with the mouse, you can paste it with the mouse. If you copy something with the keyboard, you can paste it with the keyboard. You can think of the thing you selected/copied as being 'in the mouse' or 'in the keyboard' - and the benefit with the mouse? You select and you don't have to actively do a 'Copy' operation, you can just go ahead and paste. With the middle mouse button."

Admittedly it takes time to get used to, and many keep right-clicking, selecting "Copy"¹, then right-clicking again, selecting "Paste" - it's painstakingly slow compared to a single middle click.

¹ Especially in terminals where the keyboard shortcut for "Copy" they are used to does something else.