GNOME Playing Around With New Middle-Click Action

[curaga]

OT is par for the course for Phoronix Anyway, I already stated my on-topic response too.

[ssam]

I would be sad to not have middle click paste. In the time it takes to reconfigure GNOME3 into a state I like, it is easier to just switch to MATE. There has always been room for multiple desktop projects in linux.

[ssam]

First. Despite the obvious downsides of middle click paste, it is still default. Second, you can change the middle click behavior with two clicks in gnome-tweak-tool. You wasted around 140 clicks writing your message. That is more than a life time changing niddle click behavior.

It looks like the plan is that middle click paste will not be default in the future.

https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-settings-daemon/commit/?id=e204eddcdbfb9f8d722355fab1643330c7d10c25

I forgot to include the time of searching through the gnome control panels to find the option. searching the web to find if its a bug or an intention change. finding out that gnome tweak tool can fix it. and installing gnome tweak tool.

Then again for a bunch of other GNOME3 'features'. when the multiple desktops with multiple screens behaviour changed, it could be turned off in gnome tweak tool, but you ended up with a very buggy multiple desktops ( https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=652580 ). Then there is the alt-tab stuff. Getting a system monitor in the top panel. using programs that are have systray applets (tomboy, gmpc, liferea). Things that used to work but don't now https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=663690 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=692969 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=981958 ...

[krasnoglaz]

Gnome 3: Killing established workstation usability one feature at a time

[bwat47]

From what I've seen, the tweak tool is also somewhat limiting, and my point is many of the options that are in it are things that gnome should've had to begin with. Note that while I don't see anything functionally wrong with the tweak tool, from a system-wide point of view, it's disorganized. So you might have a dedicated program to change volume or screen resolution settings, but you need to break open tweak tool for other system related things, such as changing the font. This is just simply a very inelegant way of cramming in additional miscellaneous features that shouldn't be missing in the first place. They could've done it like XFCE, where you can download separate configuration tools but they can all be optionally attached to the same settings manager. Then, there could have been an "advanced mode" where you could reveal some of the more risky or complicated features. That way everybody wins and you don't have to rely on misfit tools.


I'd have to agree that KDE sometimes gets a little too carried away with some settings. I also feel KDE's System Settings program is disorganized, but at least everything is all in 1 place. There are a few things in KDE that I just leave at the defaults because they're too tedious to edit myself. I personally feel XFCE is the only distro that really got everything settings related done right, though I feel KDE has the best features.

Yeah I do agree that XFCE has a nice settings manager and a good balance of simplicity and settings. I just don't like how old and crufty XFCE is under the hood

[bwat47]

Those lack of customization ones are extremely good arguments. If it's not configurable by default, it's not configurable by the majority.

Gnome Tweak Tool, a GUI for their registry, is barely better than Regedit for Windows. Requiring a third-party tool to provide options that should've been configurable in the main package is terrible.

Comparing tweak tool to the windows registry is totally absurd. Tweak tools gui is FAR more user friendly than regedit. Have you ever even used tweak tool?

The comparison to the windows regedit is dconf-editor/gconf-editor not tweak tool.

[leif81]

Strange, I see no reference to middle-click changes on the design whiteboard. No wonder they reverted it.

https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/Selections

My first reaction to removing middle-click paste is "oh no you didn't!", but after reading the design page I like what GNOME is planning for text selection. Although I don't see why this needs to involve middle-click at all. I can already do selections with my mouse. Just popup the new extent handles every time I make a selection. It'd be pretty nice. If you miss-select text which happens frequently, just drag a handle to make it longer or shorter. Seems useful to me for desktop use cases.

[kigurai]

Strange, I see no reference to middle-click changes on the design whiteboard. No wonder they reverted it.

https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/Selections

My first reaction to removing middle-click paste is "oh no you didn't!", but after reading the design page I like what GNOME is planning for text selection. Although I don't see why this needs to involve middle-click at all. I can already do selections with my mouse. Just popup the new extent handles every time I make a selection. It'd be pretty nice. If you miss-select text which happens frequently, just drag a handle to make it longer or shorter. Seems useful to me for desktop use cases.

If you look around the relevant commits/bug reports it seems that the issue is somewhat more complex than "GNOME is removing middle click copy-paste". Seems like most people replying to this thread hardly even read the Phoronix article...

[leif81]

Seems like most people replying to this thread hardly even read the Phoronix article...

Business as usual Read the headline, flame in the forum.

[sarmad]

You can actually paste using the middle button?! I never knew that, seriously.

Seriously, what's the big deal about people toying around with new ideas? If you don't like new ideas then just go back and use older versions. Otherwise, any feature they change/introduce will have its share of haters.