The core of the issue
- Obsidian uses the middle-click for various functionality like opening links in new tabs/windows.
- But this is conflicting with the default Linux OS behavior in which the middle-click pastes the clipboard.
- Unfortunately, there is no sure way to turn this pasting feature off on the OS level. Maybe on some specific distributions, using a specific set of non-typical terminal tools, for limited types of applications, X desktop vs. Wayland, etc, it is possible. But not consistently, not easily and without any guarantee that it will work. I am using one of the most popular Linux distros available and I couldnāt find a way to disable it for Obsidian, let alone the whole OS. Itās a really big mess.
- Basically, the only solution is for the specific application developer to disable this pasting functionality for his software. And this is exactly what I ask you to do. Not having a toggle in the settings is not a problem.
Examples of problems
Example 1
- Have some text in the copy&paste buffer.
- Be in note1 writing.
- Want to open note2 in a new window.
- Middle-click on the name note2 in the file explorer.
4.a) note2 opens in a new window
4.b) BUG. note1 now has a pasted text
Example 2
- Have ātextā in the copy&paste buffer.
- Be in edit mode of note1 and want to open an internal link to note2 in a new window
- Middle-click on
[[note2]]
link
3.a) note2 opens in new window
3.b) while the[[note2]]
in note1 becomes[[nottexte2]]
(or similar, depending on where the cursor was at the moment of the middle-click
3.c) so I have to remember to undo this change. If I donāt, it will influence my Zettelkasten workflow more than you would think (wonāt go into details)
In order to circumvent the problems, I have to remember to:
- switch to preview mode
- middle-click the link from there
- go back to the old document and switch back to the edit mode
Environment
- Operating system: Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon
- Debug info:
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v0.13.33
Installer version: v0.13.31
Operating system: #40~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Mon Mar 7 09:18:32 UTC 2022 5.13.0-35-generic
Additional information
Related topic: