Middle-click and drag doesn't trigger auto scrolling

Question

I've just came from a Windows system (in fact, I'm dual booting Ubuntu 12.04 and Win7), and in my Firefox installation back then, when I pressed the middle mouse button (mouse wheel), it displayed a circle that I could move the pointer away from to navigate around the page in a 2-dimensional scrolling. In Ubuntu's Firefox, I don't see this behaviour. Is there a way to enable this feature? I beleive it would require a different version of Firefox, because when I search middle in about:config, ot only has

middlemouse.scrollbarPosition;true
middlemouse.paste;true
middlemouse.openNewWindow;true
middlemouse.contentLoadURL
browser.tabs.opentabfor.middleclick;true

I'm using the canonical release 23.0, by the way.

EDIT: Downloaded a clean install from firefox.com and nothing changed. Maybe it's a system bug?

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 11 '13 at 22:14

11

The function you describe is called 'autoscroll' and it's an option you can enable in Firefox. Check the preferences menu, it's in there.

answered Aug 11 '13 at 22:14

Tom Brossman

12,953
11
66
134

Wow, thanks! Strange that this setting didn't sync from my Windows install of Firefox... – This company is turning evil. Aug 11 '13 at 22:20
4

@Kroltan I'm a bit late, but the reason that it didn't sync is because it was at its default on Windows. if you had explicitly set the option, _then_ it would have sync'd. – strugee Nov 21 '13 at 05:49

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 11 '13 at 20:18

It's not a system bug, just one of the ways things are different on Ubuntu (and Linux in general) compared to Windows. Middle-click is used to paste from the xclipboard -- this is distinct from the Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V clipboard you are probably used to. Any text you highlight with your mouse will be available to paste by middle-clicking.

This may not sound useful at first, but it really is -- middle-click paste is one of those small things that I really miss when I have to use Windows.

This is handled by Ubuntu rather than any individual program, so using a different version of Firefox won't help you. I'm sure it is possible to enable the behaviour you're describing, but it would probably be quiet a lot of effort.

Oh, what a shame... I would make much better use of a scroll-ball. Thanks for clarifying. — This company is turning evil., Aug 11 '13 at 21:39

Middle-click and drag doesn't trigger auto scrolling

2 Answers2