this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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Pretty sure most of you already know this but for those who don't: you have two clipboards in Linux. One is the traditional clipboard where you copy with control c and paste with control v. The other one is when you highlight text and use the mouse middle click to paste text.

More details here.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Not going to lie, I hate the middle click clipboard and disable it ASAP. I really dislike the idea that it copies things without my explicit permission.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't believe anything is actually copied until you request it to be pasted. The clipboards in Linux mark where the data is, and don't actually initiate a copy until there's a destination.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/clipboard

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Yes. You can test this by selecting something, closing that window and attempting to paste. It won't work. Closing the window removes the information about what was highlighted, so there is nothing to paste. If it were to copy upon selection you'd still be able to paste.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's one of the things that I hated at first when moving from Windows, but then I got so used to it I just can't live without it. Whenever I use Windows, I would try to quickly copypaste text using selection, doing so for 5-10 seconds, until I realise this is not a thing on this OS.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ditto. And sometimes I use both the Ctrl+C and middle-click clipboards at the same time, when I want to copy two chunks of text. Like this:

  • Select chunk A, press Ctrl+C
  • Select chunk B
  • Shift window
  • Paste chunk B through middle-click
  • Paste chunk A through Ctrl+V
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Windows and KDE Plasma both have CMD + V to show a list of all things that have been copied. So I always just do Ctrl + C, Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, CMD + V -> down arrow -> enter. Though on KDE Plasma you will need another Ctrl + V to actually do the pasting after you have selected the value to paste, whereas on Windows selecting the value also pastes it. But the workflows are very similar.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Huh, I do not have CMD + V for clipboard contents in Plasma with Klipper. What distro is configuring that?

I am assuming by CMD you mean Superkey. If not, I would like to know. I looked at Klipper shortcuts and didnt find it in there either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

By CMD, I mean the windows key. I am using Opensuse Tumbleweed. I thought I was just using the default clipboard, but I guess I'm not 100% sure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I will give it a look an check it out. Been awhile since I used Suse. Totally cool. Oh and I meant the windows key. A lot of Linux folks call it the super key.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I guess I was using the Mac term for it. I use all three heavily, so they all get mixed up on my head.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Well I guess it is configured that way on my EndeavorOS laptop, so I wonder what I need to do to enable it. My desktop has been rolling for 4 years, maybe they added that at some point along the way.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Lol I have gotten so used to it that I can barely use web terminals that don't support it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I actually like the feature but could you explain how you disabled it? I've tried to merge all three clipboards into one a few years ago and couldn't make it work

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

KDE has the option to disable middle click paste, so I do that. Out of sight, out of mind

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Whenever I use a touchpad without physical buttons, I usually disable the middle button entirely. It's more of a hammer-to-mosquito solution than what you were asking, but it's as easy as adding this command to the autostart file (on Xorg): xinput set-button-map "Name-of-your-Touchpad-goes-here" 1 0 3 4 5 6 7, where "Name-of-your-Touchpad-goes-here" can be found with xinput list --name-only.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 1 year ago

... and it's not like other uses of middle-click are exotic.