I was just reading this thread… https://sh.itjust.works/post/23476261
…and it got me thinking about something that I’ve wanted for a long time. Why is it that keyboards have not evolved to have dedicated copy/paste keys left of the main board? I’d love to see an additional column of keys left of Esc->Ctrl configurable as macros at least. I do a lot of copy/paste for work. The current shortcuts arent terrible or anything but they’re not exactly comfortable. I’d rather move my whole hand to the left for a macro key than contort to hit the current shortcut.
What do you think?
Ok, I was wrong, for some reason browsers have a different default for that setting depending on OS, for example Firefox docs:
https://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries
In any case this is not a Linux problem, for some reason Mozilla (and probably Google as well) decided to use a different default depending on OS, so if you want the other behavior you need to change it, it has nothing to do with Linux, tomorrow Mozilla could decide to invert this setting, and it wouldn’t be a Windows problem that the default is off.
Which is different from the middle-mouse paste which is a feature of X window manager, therefore one could make the argument that it is a Linux feature.
It’s a Linux problem in the sense that like you say, the X window manager hijacked the middle mouse button for a different functionality way back in the day and the browser developers, and others as well, just respect that decision by default, even if it never made any sense. Many people are now used to it and prefer it like this so there was always resistance to changing it to how windows does it and just drop the whole mouse wheel does text manipulation thing.
If and until that changes to the sensible way, at least people like me have the configurations to fix it so I guess it could be worse.
There’s no dropping the text manipulation thing, the setting on Firefox is completely under Firefox developers control, and has nothing to do with what the button does somewhere else. That’s like saying it’s a Windows problem that a shortcut is different by default on a given program, complain to Firefox devs if you think the default should be enabled.
Also you’re making a huge deal out of something that’s two clicks away, middle mouse button works as a navigation tool on Linux just like it does on Windows, additionally it provides extra features under some circumstances.
So to recap:
Honestly it’s always the same, people claim Linux has a problem whenever a third party program does something. Linux is not perfect, but I have never seen anyone who doesn’t use it actually list any of those problems, they always point at third party software as proof that Linux is bad.