RFC: Firefox general.autoScroll to true

Chris Adams cmadams at hiwaay.net
Sat Aug 2 21:07:53 UTC 2008


Once upon a time, Mark <markg85 at gmail.com> said:
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 10:27 PM, Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net> wrote:
> > We are talking about the middle button, which has been the "paste"
> > button in X for a long long time.  Please don't make Firefox different
> > from other X applications.
> 
> Ehm.. LOL...
> I can't help it that the default (in this case) is wrong.
> I atleast don't expect to get something pasted when i press my mousewheel.

It may be wrong in your opinion, but it is my opinion that you are
wrong.  We both have opinions; please don't act as if yours is fact and
everybody else is simply wrong.

Firefox acts that way to integrate with the rest of X.  There are many
differences between the different platform versions of Firefox (Windows,
Mac, Unix/X); they are there so that the browser can act like other
platform applications.

It is much more common for users to switch between applications on a
platform than for users to use the same application between different
platforms, so the common case is the correct default.  Firefox on Unix/X
should act like other X applications, which use the middle button as
paste.

If you want to argue that this should be different, you need more than
"that's the way Windows works" as an argument.  Trying to argue that the
middle button is not a button because it is part of the wheel doesn't
help.  That brings to mind the argument:

  How many legs does a dog have, if you call the tail a leg?
  Four; calling the tail a leg doesn't make it so.

It is a button, it is in the middle of the mouse; therefore, it is the
middle button.  We have many years of historical use that says that in
X, middle button is paste.

I have never tried the alternate behavior before.  Frankly, I don't find
it all that useful.  We already have many ways to scroll, and adding one
application-specific way doesn't seem all that much better to me.  If
this was implemented in a consistent manner (e.g. if GNOME and/or KDE
had it in their libraries and it was configurable at the UI level for
all of their applications), that might be handy.

Also, if it could be mapped to alternate buttons (e.g. my mouse has
another button just behind the scroll wheel), that would be much better.
However, it doesn't look like Firefox can handle that (another reason
not to enable the behavior by default).

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.




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