Suggestion for Xorg / about middle-mouse click pasting

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Thu, 23 Jul 2020 04:19:16 -0400 Elie Goldman Smith
<elie.goldman.smith at gmail.com> said:

this has nothing to do with xorg - each toolkit and/or client app implements
this. xorg/xlibs just provide the mechanisms. they all do this because in x it
*IS* expected behaviour and has been expected to work this way for 30 years or
so...

your rationale applies equally to ctrl+v ... it can also be accidentally
pressed. imagine a heavy terminal user hits ctrl+c to "Stop that" and focus is
on the wrong window... your rationale then would apply to this situation too, so
this should also be disabled. your logic leads to the following conlusion:

all pastes need to be disabled by default probably with a "you want to paste
'xyz' ... are you sure [yes] [no]" approval dialogs... :) you are definitely
welcome to suggest this to toolkit and app makers. :)

> X.Org, to whom it may concern:
> 
> I'm writing to suggest that Xorg's middle-mouse pasting should be an
> optional feature, not an unchangeable behavior.
> 
> The rationale is simple:
> Middle-mouse pasting is only beneficial to users who know that it exists.
> For everyone else, it's a liability.
> 
> Say for example a user is writing a document, scrolling through it,
> and accidentally pastes text without knowing it.
> The pasted text might contain sensitive/private information.
> The user submits the document somewhere, and people read it.
> It's more likely than you think.
> 
> This isn't simply a matter of mouse scroll wheels that click too
> easily. Laptop touchpads are known to paste accidentally too. Even
> 2-button emulation is a liability, if the user doesn't remember to
> deliberately avoid pressing both buttons at once.
> 
> 
> Solution:
> Middle-mouse pasting would be great as a setting that can be
> enabled/disabled by 'xset' on the command line.
> 
> Please let me know if this would be simple to implement.
> 
> 
> Thanks
> - Elie
> 
> 
> P.S.
> Current workarounds involve either:
> - completely disabling the middle mouse button
> - blocking the feature in specific apps only
> - scripts that continuously delete Xorg's clipboard every half-second
> 
> We can do better.
> 
> P.P.S.
> I would bet that desktop linux distros would disable middle-mouse
> pasting by default, if they could.
> Many users are new to Linux, and are used to absent-mindedly clicking
> the scroll wheel while scrolling.
> Hardcore coders can always re-enable the feature via 'xset'.


-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
Carsten Haitzler - raster at rasterman.com