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I'm interested in why you'd like to see an option to disable it, considering that you could just as well not click the button. Is there something in your daily

I'm interested in why you'd like to see an option to disable it, considering that you could just as well not click the button. Is there something in your daily workflow that leads to lots of accidental presses?

latk 13y ago
For me: a touchpad as the primary pointer input device. I use two fingers for scrolling and a two-finger tap as middle mouse button clicks. I really like that setup for web browsing, but it frequently messes up code in the editor.
- claudius 13y ago
  I guess it depends on the hardware used – I mostly use one of these external Thinkpad-like keyboards with three dedicated buttons and a track point and never accidentally middle-paste. But I guess if middle-click never does anything useful for you (Windows, Mac), you might prioritise it less in your hardware design :|
  - ANTSANTS 13y ago
    It does do useful things on Windows. There are the browser behaviors I mentioned above. Most image editors use middle click to pan, and I think 3D modeling programs use it to rotate and pan as well. It's only in dedicated text boxes that middle click does nothing useful, but we're all so used to Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V that we don't have any desire to use that button for pasting.
    - claudius 13y ago
      Certainly, but those are all related to holding the middle mouse button and moving the mouse, not clicking per se. Similar behaviour is available on X with something like: Option "EmulateWheel" "on" Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2" Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7" Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5" Which is exactly the way I scroll: Hold the middle button and move the trackpoint.
smackay 13y ago
My mouse has a scroll wheel which also doubles as the middle button when clicked. When scrolling through text, a little too much pressure and you end up pasting code all over the place. It's a monumental pain in the ass when dealing with code and requires minute checking all of changes in case an errant paste makes into the repository.
- tterrace 13y ago
  I've accidentally pasted lines with --username --password into source files because of a sensitive scroll wheel... That's pretty embarrassing in code review.
  - PommeDeTerre 13y ago
    Wouldn't your own personal pre-peer-review review have caught that?
    - ars 13y ago
      Plus you should be checking diffs before committing anything.
  - brokenparser 13y ago
    It's generally a good idea to use git add -p, even without a sensitive scroll wheel.
- brokenparser 13y ago
  Buy a better mouse, a B100 is just $13 at Newegg. The cheapest is almost $5 and it'll probably work just fine.
- pwg 13y ago
  > My mouse has a scroll wheel which also doubles as the middle button when clicked. When scrolling through text, a little too much pressure and you end up pasting code all over the place. I would submit that this is not a problem with middle click to paste, but rather a problem with a bad hardware design for the particular mouse you are utilizing. The true solution is to replace the badly designed mouse with a better mouse.
ANTSANTS 13y ago
In most web browsers, middle click closes tabs, opens links in new tabs, and on Windows, starts an automatic "scroll follows mouse" mode. I seem to remember that at one point, Chromium on Linux would interpret middle clicking on an unclickable part of the page to mean "interpret the text stored in the clipboard as a URL or search term, and go to it." Imagine the fun I had with the occasional misclick of a link before I found an extension that implements Windows-like middle click scroll. The only time I ever intentionally use middle click paste is when using the terminal where, you know, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are already taken. An option to disable middle click paste for everything but terminal emulators could only be a benefit, removing a rare but ever present source of confusion and mistakes.
- claudius 13y ago
  > Chromium on Linux would interpret middle clicking on an unclickable part of the page to mean "interpret the text stored in the clipboard as a URL or search term, and go to it." Imagine the fun I had with the occasional misclick of a link before I found an extension that implements Windows-like middle click scroll Opera does that, too, and I love it. No need to focus the address bar after selecting text, just click and go :)

latk 13y ago

For me: a touchpad as the primary pointer input device. I use two fingers for scrolling and a two-finger tap as middle mouse button clicks. I really like that setup for web browsing, but it frequently messes up code in the editor.

claudius 13y ago
I guess it depends on the hardware used – I mostly use one of these external Thinkpad-like keyboards with three dedicated buttons and a track point and never accidentally middle-paste. But I guess if middle-click never does anything useful for you (Windows, Mac), you might prioritise it less in your hardware design :|
- ANTSANTS 13y ago
  It does do useful things on Windows. There are the browser behaviors I mentioned above. Most image editors use middle click to pan, and I think 3D modeling programs use it to rotate and pan as well. It's only in dedicated text boxes that middle click does nothing useful, but we're all so used to Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V that we don't have any desire to use that button for pasting.
  - claudius 13y ago
    Certainly, but those are all related to holding the middle mouse button and moving the mouse, not clicking per se. Similar behaviour is available on X with something like: Option "EmulateWheel" "on" Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2" Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7" Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5" Which is exactly the way I scroll: Hold the middle button and move the trackpoint.

smackay 13y ago

My mouse has a scroll wheel which also doubles as the middle button when clicked. When scrolling through text, a little too much pressure and you end up pasting code all over the place. It's a monumental pain in the ass when dealing with code and requires minute checking all of changes in case an errant paste makes into the repository.

tterrace 13y ago
I've accidentally pasted lines with --username --password into source files because of a sensitive scroll wheel... That's pretty embarrassing in code review.
- PommeDeTerre 13y ago
  Wouldn't your own personal pre-peer-review review have caught that?
  - ars 13y ago
    Plus you should be checking diffs before committing anything.
- brokenparser 13y ago
  It's generally a good idea to use git add -p, even without a sensitive scroll wheel.
brokenparser 13y ago
Buy a better mouse, a B100 is just $13 at Newegg. The cheapest is almost $5 and it'll probably work just fine.
pwg 13y ago
> My mouse has a scroll wheel which also doubles as the middle button when clicked. When scrolling through text, a little too much pressure and you end up pasting code all over the place. I would submit that this is not a problem with middle click to paste, but rather a problem with a bad hardware design for the particular mouse you are utilizing. The true solution is to replace the badly designed mouse with a better mouse.

ANTSANTS 13y ago

In most web browsers, middle click closes tabs, opens links in new tabs, and on Windows, starts an automatic "scroll follows mouse" mode. I seem to remember that at one point, Chromium on Linux would interpret middle clicking on an unclickable part of the page to mean "interpret the text stored in the clipboard as a URL or search term, and go to it." Imagine the fun I had with the occasional misclick of a link before I found an extension that implements Windows-like middle click scroll. The only time I ever intentionally use middle click paste is when using the terminal where, you know, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V are already taken. An option to disable middle click paste for everything but terminal emulators could only be a benefit, removing a rare but ever present source of confusion and mistakes.

claudius 13y ago
> Chromium on Linux would interpret middle clicking on an unclickable part of the page to mean "interpret the text stored in the clipboard as a URL or search term, and go to it." Imagine the fun I had with the occasional misclick of a link before I found an extension that implements Windows-like middle click scroll Opera does that, too, and I love it. No need to focus the address bar after selecting text, just click and go :)