Comment by shbooms
3 days ago
the title contradicts what's in the actual article.
the proposal is to change the default beahvior, not getting rid of the ability outright. as long as they both retain the ability to change the behavior back to how was before, it doesn't seem like this is as dire as the author is trying to make it out.
I sympathize with the idea of having to add yet another setting change to what I'm sure is a long list of configs/settings updates that most of us have to perform everytime we boot up a new system but this is all that it looks like would be the case here if this proposal goes through
> it doesn't seem like this is as dire as the author is trying to make it out.
First you make it as an option.
Then you remove the option.
This is GNOME development style.
Not unlike Firefox, Gnome has a lot of hidden options which aren't exposed in the regular settings UI. There has been an option to control 'primary paste' for 9 years, and it's exposed in Gnome tweaks. There's no obvious reason that changing the default means the option will be removed entirely.
It really should be the default though, as it's the default behaviour in basically every app.
I was confused when starting to use Linux Mint. Sometimes when scrolling fast, some text would appear, but not always, and I also couldn't predict which text. I suspected the middle mouse button, but purposefully pressing it didn't work so I ruled it out at first
It took a while to realise it is the combination of:
- having selected something
- hovering over an editable field
- pressing the middle mouse button
But now, a few years down the line, I cannot live without. It is so convenient to, for example, copy the password and then double click the username and paste them both with the flick of the mouse and a ctrl+v. Nearly every time I touch my partner's Windows device for 5 minutes, I run into a situation where it would have been convenient and saved a second trip back and forth between two tabs or windows
Default off is where neat things go to die because the discovery factor is gone, it gets forgotten, falls out of use, and becomes only a burden to maintain
> It really should be the default though
The current setting is a net win imo. What desktop environments could do is explain what just happened when you use it for the first time, so that you don't accidentally paste data somewhere without realising it