[SOLVED-kind-of] How to disable drag and drop of text.

[Dirkoir]

Drag and drop of objects such as icons from a file manager onto an application which can handle the file is very, very useful and convenient. OTOH, I have never (repeat: NEVER!) found any use of drag and drop of text within a text field, while it has cost me time countless times having to clean up the mess this "feature" produces when it misunderstands my attempt to simply select a range of text due to lag, malfunctioning mouse buttons, and so forth.

Last time I looked into disabling this, I was on Windows and only found clues that it is a system-wide function. I don't think I found a way to disable it. The ugly beast just reared its head again in Firefox running on Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon.

So, my question: On Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon, is there a way to disable drag and drop of text?

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This would be a welcome surprise.

[Spearmint2]

what's so hard about it?

VIDEO

do you know you can hilite text with a mouse, then go to where you want it and clk the middle mouse button and put it there, no need to drag it. If you use dconf-editor you can raise the threshold that allows a drag to take place. Means you have to hilite and then drag less or more to start the drag. Default setting I saw in MATE is 8.

[SJLPHI]

Was there a conclusive answer to this? I'm looking for this as well for both Win7Pro and LM17. Especially when I'm using the touchpad while I'm typing; I end up having mid-sentences moved to the wrong position.

[gibbs1984]

I use this feature all the time, drag the text to the search field and it searches for the text, rather than right clicking, copy, right clicking, paste, enter. So much easier.

[SJLPHI]

Easier to use meaning easier to mess up while typing something. Was totally like this. I like the classic Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, I once wrote a lab report where it

[Spearmint2]

you can change the threshold setting from 8 pixels ot something higher that makes it almost impossible to accidentally drag and drop.

[SJLPHI]

I've set the touchpad to do palm check and to be disabled while I'm typing so they help quite a bit, it's simply just a feature that I NEVER want to see.

[shieldfire]

Was there a conclusive answer to this? I'm looking for this as well for both Win7Pro and LM17. Especially when I'm using the touchpad while I'm typing; I end up having mid-sentences moved to the wrong position.

AT least in Cinnamon you can disable the touchpad while entering text from the keyboard. Very useful as the above is extremely irritating.

[Dirkoir]

Comments:

Touchpad: I have set mine to be disabled while typing, too, but I still found it interfering. I ended up just turning it off completely since I prefer a mouse anyway (much better control and less interruptive). It was a little scary, though, that this setting cannot be changed from the keyboard alone. What would be nice here would be a setting that automatically disables the touchpad while a mouse is plugged in like there exists in some drivers on Windows. Anyway, that's for another thread or feature request.

Text-Drag-and-Drop:

1. Convenience for searches: I don't mind ^-c ^-v because it gives precise control and can't fire by accident, but for someone who wants something quicker or mouse/tp-only I would recommend my favourite search method in FireFox (also working in other browsers nowadays, I think): After highlighting the text which you want to search, just opposite-click on it (that's "right-click" for most people) and choose Search Startpage (or Google or whatever you have currently set) for "[your selection]" from the context menu. I think that's quicker and less accident prone than drag-dropping text.
2. Killing the Monster: Well, if playing with sensitivity is our only option, I will have to fiddle with that. Unfortunately, in my experience, sensitivity thresholds can not always be set high enough to really eliminate a problem (touchpad sensitivities being an example), and - quite frankly - after countless years of suffering agonies from this so-called "feature" it would give me great satisfaction to actually disable, kill, expunge, slay, slaughter, EXTERMINATE (imagine Dalek voice here) this vile text-drag-and-drop beast.

Current Work-Around:

As far as setting the sensitivity to higher tolerance (i.e. increase the threshold) is concerned, I just found that the regular System Settings control panel (if I may call it that on a Linux forum) allows you to do that: Mint Menu --> System Settings --> Mouse and Touchpad (under Hardware) -- No installation of dconf-editor necessary.

There are two threshold settings there (in the Mouse tab, but the touchpad thankfully adopts the same threshold settings): one for "Cinnamon" with an upper limit of 200, and one for "GTK" with an upper limit of 400 (the default for both was 8, I think). So far, I see only the GTK setting affecting applications (Nemo, FireFox, and gedit). Too bad that Nemo and text editing applications depend on the same setting. I just now ended up setting the GTK value to 300 as a compromise between pleeeease-never-do-this-with-text and yes-please-let-me-drag-files-and-folders-in-Nemo. BTW, typing the value in didn't seem to have an immediate effect, but using the + and - buttons did. Could be a fluke, though.



This will probably improve things a lot. At least in Cinnamon-Mint 17. I still would prefer an ability to totally disable this feature whenever text is concerned.
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Dirkoir, who wishes he could also find a setting to keep his few-months-old and already failing mouse's bounce (mouse-up) from firing as a second mouse click.

[SJLPHI]

Well, on my E530, I always use a wireless mouse because the touchpad on it is CRAP(No buttons at the bottom, you can only use ultranav buttons or click with different number of fingers on the touchpad), on my T410S however, it is actually quite decent and easy to work with. As I've mentioned, I've set the touchpad to be disabled while I'm typing but I usually type without looking and when it comes to working in a dark room on a spread sheet, this monstrous feature forces me to carry my wireless keyboard as well

[Dirkoir]

BTW, there is currently a vote on for the automatically disable touch-pad when mouse is plugged in feature at: http://community.linuxmint.com/idea/view/3214

Let's all vote for this. I did.

[Spearmint2]

BTW, there is currently a vote on for the automatically disable touch-pad when mouse is plugged in feature at: http://community.linuxmint.com/idea/view/3214

Let's all vote for this. I did.

Reminds me of an old Office prank. Plug a second mouse into the computer of a nearby user, perhaps in next cubicle. When he reports for work and is really into typing something, wiggle the second mouse and watch the fun begin. Circles, spastic jiggles, errant clicks, you can really drive him nuts.

You can also add an extra keyboard too and increase the fun.