Re: newer 'info' does not accept midclick, nor can one select text

[Gavin Smith]

On 21 October 2015 at 09:06, Benno Schulenberg <address@hidden> wrote:
> With info 6.0 one cannot midclick something into the search
> prompt any more.  Nor can one select text by dragging the
> mouse.  Both things work fine in 4.13.
>
> (Of course one can hold down Shift and then midclicking and
> selecting text will work, but most users will not know this,
> nor will they find this in the manual; they will be perplexed
> and annoyed by not being able to paste and select.)
>
> Now, if this pointer mode was somehow useful, if one could do
> something with the mouse, then I could understand why things
> are this way.  But one cannot click on a reference link in order
> to follow it, nor can one place the cursor anywhere by clicking.
> The mouse is completely impotent.  (I don't actually have a
> mouse, just a touchpad, so no scrollwheel.)
>
> But even if the mouse could be used to follow links, I don't
> think this should be the default mode for 'info' -- it should
> require an (init-file) option to select this mode.  Most users
> will not expect to be able to use the scrollwheel within a
> terminal program, so they won't even try.

Okay, probably better to turn it off by default, because of the text
selection problem.

I use a touchpad as well, but moving my finger down the right side of
the touchpad does the same as a scrollwheel on a mouse, and I use this
all the time. (I'm used to the same feature in vim.) I've never been
interested in implementing clicking on links because I wouldn't want
to use it myself. If it was implemented ideally the link under the
mouse pointer would be highlighted: this would require using a
different terminal mode that does mouse motion tracking.