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I use the mouse wheel a lot to scroll up and down in my documents and files. Having moved from Windows, I didn't realise that the middle mouse button/wheel, when clicked, pastes highlighted text where the mouse is pointing.

I've been hit with this several time, where my scripts have failed because of a paste that takes me a while to discover.

After several attempts at disabling the middle mouse button, I succeedded with:

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 25 3 4 5 6 7 8 9"

I found this on this site, which also states how to persist it.

The problem with this feature, is that I rely on other elements of clicking the middle mouse button such as opening links in a new tab or closing a tab in my browser (to name 2 of a few).

It is annoying me that I have lost these functions. How can I disable pasting but keep all the other uses of middle mouse button clicking?

* Please note I am reasonably new to Ubuntu and Linux and have also read about patching the kernel, but I don't feel confident doing this!! *

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If your mouse records middle clicks while you just want to scroll, I'd suggest you to try another mouse model (probably one with a higher pressure to click the wheel). After several years of Linux use I've never been bothered with your issue, actually the middle click paste proved itself to be quite useful :) – Maxime R. Jan 12 '12 at 14:50
There is nothing wrong with the mouse, the force to click the wheel is normal. I think it is the force and velocity at which I can scroll sometimes. Hence why I get pastes without noticing in random places in my files. I also don't think I will use the middle click to paste as I am used to my current method and switch OSes all the time anyway.... – neildeadman Jan 12 '12 at 14:52
possible duplicate of How do I disable middle mouse button click paste? – htorque Jan 12 '12 at 20:48

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

Somehow, I ended up without any xmodmap files on my Ubuntu install, so I had to find a different approach to this problem.

Take a look at the xinput command. 

xinput list | grep -i mouse

which lists information about your mouse. It shows my mouse is "Dell Premium USB Optical Mouse" and also that I have "Macintosh mouse button emulation". Armed with that info, I can 

xinput get-button-map "Dell Premium USB Optical Mouse"

which gives me a listing that looks like

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Here is the useful, required knowledge. My mouse has, theoretically, 18 buttons. Each button's default action has the same name as it's button number. In other words, button 1 does action 1, button 4 does action 4, etc. Action 0 means "off".

The position in the listing shows the function assigned to that button. So if my button map read

1 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

this would mean button 1 (position 1) does action 1 (normal left button), button 2 (position 2) does action 3 (middle button) and button 3 (position 3) does action 2 (right button).

To make a left handed mouse all you would need would be a button map that starts

3 2 1 4 5 .....

Or, in your case, it looks like you want the middle button to do the same thing as button 1 (left button) so your map needs to start

1 1 3 ....

I'd reset my mouse button mappings thus:

xinput set-button-map "Dell Premium USB Optical Mouse" 1 1 3 5 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

In your case, you may have a different number of mapped buttons and have some special button map already defined. Likwely, your mouse has a different name, too. First, get your mouse's "name". Then, use the get-button-map operation to find your base button map. finally, use the set-button-map option, modifying button 2 to do action 1.

This is not a permanent change. I added the necessary code to my .bashrc so it executes every time I login or open a terminal.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks for the info. It explains a little more about the mouse buttons and the actions applied to them. However, it isn't the solution I am looking for. If you left-click a tab in Chrome (to use my example) it selects it (if not selected already). Clicking it with the middle button, will close it (i.e. without clicking the X). I also miss middle-clicking a link to have it open in a new tab for later reading. I realise I can overcome these with alternatives but I am used to this way of working.... – neildeadman Jan 12 '12 at 14:18
Just a thought; any of the other buttons on your mouse, mine say I have 18 buttons though I have yet to physically find more than about 8 of them) may be the function you want. Try mapping other buttons to your third button and see if you find something useful. – Wes Miller Jan 13 '12 at 13:04
If you remap as a two button mouse, it shouldn't change the wheelfunction since the wheel rolls are pressing button 5 and 6 (or 7 and 8 or something like that). – Wes Miller Jan 13 '12 at 13:09
up vote 0 down vote

You might want to try emulating a two button mouse. With a two button mouse you paste by clicking both mouse buttons at the same time (rather then the scroll wheel).

Install gpointing-device-settings:

sudo aptitude install gpointing-device-settings

http://live.gnome.org/GPointingDeviceSettings

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Will this still allow me to scroll in apps (such as Chrome) with the wheel though?? I'll give it a try, thanks! – neildeadman Jan 13 '12 at 8:12

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