Vertical Select with middle click is not working

[yanniszark]

Issue Type: Bug

In older versions of VSCode, I did vertical selection by clicking the middle button on the mouse and dragging.
It seems like this doesn't work anymore.

VS Code version: Code 1.40.1 (8795a98, 2019-11-13T16:49:30.162Z)
OS version: Linux x64 5.0.0-36-generic snap

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz (8 x 1960)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled flash_3d: enabled flash_stage3d: enabled flash_stage3d_baseline: enabled gpu_compositing: enabled metal: disabled_off multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on oop_rasterization: disabled_off protected_video_decode: unavailable_off rasterization: disabled_software skia_renderer: disabled_off surface_control: disabled_off surface_synchronization: enabled_on video_decode: unavailable_off viz_display_compositor: enabled_on viz_hit_test_surface_layer: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Load (avg)	4, 2, 1
Memory (System)	7.76GB (0.16GB free)
Process Argv	--force-user-env --no-sandbox --unity-launch --no-sandbox
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions (4)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
plantuml	jeb	2.13.5
intellij-idea-keybindings	k--	0.2.37
python	ms-	2019.11.50794
vscode-yaml	red	0.6.1

[vscodebot]

(Experimental duplicate detection)
Thanks for submitting this issue. Please also check if it is already covered by an existing one, like:

• Middle mouse click in scroll bar pastes text in file area (Linux) (#67671)
• Middle mouse button invokes column selection and selection paste on Linux at the same time (#49693)

[alexdima]

@yanniszark In some Linux distributions, middle clicking is reserved for moving windows. Did you perhaps change window compositors, or have upgraded your distribution since it last worked? Does middle clicking work for you in other applications?

[yanniszark]

@alexandrudima thanks for the response!
I'm working on Ubuntu 18.04.
This is the output of lsb_release -a:

Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Release:	18.04
Codename:	bionic

In Jetbrains Goland, vertical selection with middle click works as expected.

[alexdima]

Thanks for your quick reply.

VS Code is built with Electron, which is built with Chromium. Can you please try opening https://vscode-web-test-playground.azurewebsites.net (it might take a long time to load) in Chromium on the same machine? Does using the middle mouse button work there?

[yanniszark]

@alexandrudima I loaded the web page and the middle click vertical select still doesn't work.
When I try to select vertically, it just selects normally.
Also, middle click for paste works.

[alexdima]

Also, middle click for paste works.

Aha! Thanks for the last extra detail to jog my memory. Indeed, the middle mouse button by default will paste the selection clipboard on Linux. You can disable that via "editor.selectionClipboard": false. Once the selection clipboard is disabled, the middle mouse button can be used for column selection.

[yanniszark]

@alexandrudima yes that was it!
Thanks a lot for the help!
I can now go back to my favorite editor 😄