Suggestion for Xorg / about middle-mouse click pasting

[Robert Heller]

At Fri, 31 Jul 2020 19:16:14 -0400 Sam Varshavchik <sam.varshavchik at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:37 PM Adam Jackson <ajax at redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > (accidentally sent to just sam initially, whoops)
> 
> Yes, and just had a two minute look at it -- this just seems to
> disable pasting of the PRIMARY selection, completely.
> 
> I suppose that's one way to disable the middle mouse click. As well as
> the "Paste" option from most applications' "Edit" menu, and/or the
> equivalent keyboard combination.
> 
> I suppose that this is one way to fix the problem.


It should be noted that is an answer in search of a (mostly non-existant) 
problem.  Most of us long-term UNIX and Linux users don't "accidentally" click 
the middle button.  This is going to be mostly an issue for people moving to 
Linux from MS-Windows (or possibly MacOS) who have managed to develope a "bad 
habit" with respect to randomly clicking the middle button.  Clicking the 
middle button under MS-Windows (and MacOS), is a noop and so a "nervous 
twitch" the clicks it is harmless and will go unnoticed.  And yes this fix 
pretty much disables even context and Edit menu paste functions as well, which 
is not actually what the OP wanted.

> 
> 
> 
> 
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 7:22 AM Sam Varshavchik
> > <sam.varshavchik at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:30 AM Böszörményi Zoltán <zboszor at pr.hu> wrote:
> > > > 2020. 07. 30. 21:20 keltezéssel, Dennis Clarke írta:
> > > > > On 7/30/20 6:39 PM, Elie Goldman Smith wrote:
> > > > >> Countless people on forums ...
> > > > >
> > > > > Also they are not the source code nor would I rely on what countless
> > > > > people say on just about any matter whatsoever.  I am not sure when
> > > > > the horrific "popular is correct" logic became almost defacto pure
> > > > > truth but I reject it.  I am certain I am not alone but I also do not
> > > > > have a mathematical proof handy to refute the "popular is correct"
> > > > > notion.  At least not yet.
> > > >
> > > > Let me suggest an analogue / convergent notion, which is also popular
> > > > among engineers: "ten billion flies can't be wrong. let's eat sh*t"
> > > > I am not sure this refutes the "popular is correct" logic but it
> > > > certainly puts things into perspective.
> > >
> > > That's somewhat besides the point. The point is that the server has
> > > absolutely no control over this functionality. Anyone who actually
> > > knows and understands X11 (and not some uncounted number of people in
> > > some mysterious forums) will know that.
> > >
> > > If someone believes otherwise, they are free to download the source to
> > > the Xorg server, make whatever the change they believe will adjust
> > > that behavior, and prove everyone else wrong.
> >
> > Fine, I'm feeling contrarian:
> >
> > https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/snippets/1127
> >
> > The server _absolutely_ has control over this. The value of the
> > PRIMARY property, from the requesting client's perspective, is
> > whatever the server says it is. There's no reason the server needs to
> > tell you the truth. I'm pretty sure you could craft selinux policy to
> > do this and not even need to patch your server.
> >
> > The point is: opinions about this are not universal. PRIMARY's
> > behaviour is so thoroughly baked into both client software and a
> > non-trivial subset of user expectation that anyone saying "obviously
> > it should be turned off" is projecting. Likewise anyone who cut their
> > teeth on a sun3 and thinks UI design was perfected with the Athena
> > widget set is intentionally ignoring the absolutely massive
> > popularization of access to computing since 1992.
> >
> > Nobody needs a manifesto about this. If you want to improve the world
> > here the quantity of code needed is really quite small. I would like
> > to think the xorg developers are friendly and approachable enough that
> > people would feel comfortable asking how to make these kinds of
> > changes and where to start hacking. We've done tremendous amounts of
> > work over the last 15-odd years to eliminate the irrelevant code and
> > make what's left pleasant to work on. Please don't make me feel like
> > that's been wasted effort.
> >
> > - ajax
> >
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> 

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