Post #1718543

2026-04-24 12:39 UTC

GNOME showed another middle finger to its most loyal and long-time users: the middle-click paste is now disabled by default?!?! One of the most powerful features of Unix and X Windows, a thing I miss on every other operating system, is disabled because &#8220;other OSs don&#8217;t have it&#8221;? The desktop that aims to please new users isn&#8217;t gaining new users, but suffers more and more forks, keeps on hitting new lows at every release. Is it masochism? https://discourse.gnome.org/t/please-retain-middle-click-paste/33477/

Replies (3)

@gisgeek@floss.social 2026-04-24 12:55

@stefano I would say that, regarding UI, the golden rule is the dominance of idiocracy. If anything appears too advanced for the dumb average user, it is inescapably removed. In a few times, someone will propose to remove any terminal, because the CLI is too advanced for the dumb ass user.

Open ##2848320
@tragivictoria@mastodon.catgirl.cloud 2026-04-24 14:27

@stefano lmao

Open ##2848321
@sri@mastodon.social 2026-04-26 01:10

@stefano It is worth reading the last comment by ebassi about this change - https://discourse.gnome.org/t/please-retain-middle-click-paste/33477/68 Specifically "Changing the default is, ideally, just the first step towards improving the behaviour of GTK with regards to text areas, while removing a well-known trap for newcomers and experienced users alike, especially in a world where a “middle click” is often emulated and does not behave consistently across different platforms and application stacks."

Open ##2848322