Not sure if this is a bug or a setting so I want to check here first. As of the 6.6 update, Middle-Click Paste seems to have its own little world going on: it’ll paste whatever text was last selected, regardless of if it was explicitly copied with ctrl-C or not.
The kicker: the last selected text, even though will be middle-click pasted, does not appear in the clipboard history.
ctrl-V still pastes the most recent clipboard history, as it should.
But middle-click paste just does whatever was last selected whether actually copied or not.
I’ve toggled the varies settings in the Clipboard config dialog to no avail.
Is there something else I’m missing, or should I go file a bug report?
System deets: Fedora 43, kernel 6.18.8, Plasma 6.6 and associated frameworks.
middle click past from the temporary text buffer is not new and has been a linux feature for a very long time.
the clipboard is a total separate buffer where you can store copied content for later use and even edit it.
there are settings in the clipboard configure that allow you to sync these two buffers, if you wish, but i find having two buffers indispensable once you get used to it.
Yeah I found those settings, but they aren’t having an effect. Given that I copy/paste text hundreds (if not thousands) of times per day for my job, the change in behavior was immediately apparent and I can’t get it back to the way it used to be (synced buffers). I greatly prefer the two buffers to be in sync as it’s far better for my workflow.
I use the default settings, which keep the historic Linux (or is it Unix??) feature of a separate buffer for selections and for explicitly copied content. I make heavy use of both of these myself as part of my work routines.
I switched it to keep them the same to see how it behaves:
Right, and when I turn those off on my machine, highlighted text does NOT appear in the clipborad history, but STILL get’s pasted when I middle click, whereas ctrl-V only pastes the most recent entry in clipboard history.
I want both ctrl-v and middle-click to only paste most recent item in clipboard history.
middle click will always paste what is selected, that is a hard coded default as far as i know.
if you want to paste from the clipboard you need to use ctrl+v.
you can probably remap the middle button to be ctrl+v if you are bent on it, but the paste that happens by default from middle mouse button will always be whatever was last selected.
i have my lower thumb button set to ctrl+v for easy access to the clipboard buffer, and i keep my selection separate from the clipboard in the configuration.
that way i can paste a stored buffer with my thumb in among other hightlighted pastes with middle mouse button for more flexibility.
like reverse polish on a calculator, once you get used to it you can never go back.
What’s more concerning now is the strong possibility that I’m senile and haven’t noticed it in the past six months of daily driving Fedora KDE for my job.
However, I did manage to get things the way I want. Settings > General Behavior: Unchecking “Middle Click Pastes Selected Text” locks middle click to pasting only the most recent clipboard item.
But this is why I love KDE. I can almost always get it to do exactly what I want. Unlike >cough< macOS…
