Middle-Click does not scroll web site in feisty

[Rodrigo]

Binary package hint: firefox

Under edgy, I was able to middle-click a website in order to scroll through it (by moving the mouse up and down). This is no longer a behavior in the current default repository package of firefox under feisty (2.0.0.3). Middle clicking a link is still able to open the website in a new tab, and the mouse's scroll-wheel still works.

[kokoko (bababa)]

Greetings,

thanks for taking the time to submit this bug. To fix it:
Enter as your url: about:config
Then search for general.autoScroll and turn the value to True (it should have been in False.).
Also, if you were like me, and before that you were getting an annoying pop-up informing you about an unaccessible URL or something, you should switch middlemouse.contentLoadURL to False.

[Rodrigo (publicurinal598)]

Habeeb:

Thank you very much for your comment. Fortunately, I did not have the pop-up issue you described. However, you were absolutely right about the scroll behavior, and the setting fixed it. As the behavior was present in edgy by default and is expected (especially for Windows converts as it is the default action in the Windows builds as well), perhaps it should be enabled by default?

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Tue, May 01, 2007 at 10:50:34PM -0000, Rodrigo wrote:
> Habeeb:
>
> Thank you very much for your comment. Fortunately, I did not have the
> pop-up issue you described. However, you were absolutely right about the
> scroll behavior, and the setting fixed it. As the behavior was present
> in edgy by default and is expected (especially for Windows converts as
> it is the default action in the Windows builds as well), perhaps it
> should be enabled by default?
>

point is that novice users might get confused as content gets pasted
on middle-mouse-click in linux.

 - Alexander

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Thank you for taking the time to file this ubg report with us. Closing due to age. If this is still a problem in 3.0.7 please reopen this bug.
Also please reopen with all new information on how to reproduce this bug by giving us step by step instructions.
We also need what happens what is expected to happen.
To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[Fahad Sadah (fahadsadah)]

I'm reopening this, as it is still present.
In Windows, general:autoScroll is set to true.
The Ubuntu Firefox has it set to false by default.

This means that you cannot scroll by middle clicking and dragging the mouse.

[Fahad Sadah (fahadsadah)]

Sorry, general.autoScroll.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Please dont compare it to windows build as they are not the same.

Due to the comment:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/111339/comments/3
This will not be enabled by default.

[Dan Quade (danquade)]

New users sure are confused about the stupid middle-click paste functionality.
And thanks to even Firefox (where new users expect autoscroll) using the paste stupidity, this whole mess is just made a whole lot worse.

Thanks a lot!

[Hugh Warrington (x-launchpad-hughw-org)]

Re: comments #3 and #8

What exactly do you mean by 'novice users might get confused'? The select-to-copy, middle-click-to-paste functionality in Ubuntu is one of its best-hidden secrets that you're only likely to discover by mistake if at all. And if by 'novice users' you mean 'users with some experience of Windows but little experience of Ubuntu' (which I suspect applies to many newcomers to Ubuntu) then the more confusing outcome for those familiar with Firefox on Windows would be for the middle-click scroll to be seemingly broken or absent, and then one day to middle-click (accidentally or otherwise) in a text input field, only to have some semi-random text unexpectedly appear.

The middle-click scroll functionality is a great bit of user interface design. For reading long web pages it's much less taxing on the hand than dragging the vertical scrollbar, and hugely preferable to endlessly scrolling the mouse wheel. It seems a shame not to make it available in Ubuntu.

Or why not with a little extra effort implement the best of both worlds: middle click a text input box to paste the X primary selection, middle click anywhere else on the page to activate the scroll behaviour?