[Discuss] cut & paste

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

On 10/20/25 10:56 AM, dan moylan wrote:
> for years i've been able to define a region of text by
> swiping over it with the left mouse button depressed, and
> then going to another window and pasting it by depressing
> the mouse's middle button.  that no longer works for me.
> is there a way to make it work again?

I think youngins don't know about middle mouse paste, so it only happens 
these days by accident when some library does it for free without 
asking. I have noticed that it does not seem to work in Firefox, at 
least in /some/ circumstances. Something like that might be part of what 
is messing with you.


I like middle mouse button so much that I took a metal file to my XPS 
13: the trackpad target for middle mouse is small on that machine and 
though it is marked on the track pad, it is faint gray on very dark 
grey. Because being illegible is durably stylish.

Anyway, I used a file to make a nice sharp notch along the front edge of 
the computer, at the center of the trackpad. It worked great to find the 
spot by touch.

I didn't have to do that on my current Framework 13, its middle mouse 
target is much bigger, I don't need to be so precise.


-kb