One of the main annoyances with my new Ubuntu machine is not so much the fault of Ubuntu, or the Dell hardware – but the lack of a decent pointing device. As much as I complained originally, I like my Apple Magic Mouse. My muscle memory has formed, ergonomically it’s (reasonably) comfortable.
So annoying!
The main thing that annoys me is the unwanted behaviours cause by using the Apple mouse with Ubuntu. The main annoyances are:
- when right-clicking, sometimes the mouse registers it as a middle click and the mouse pastes the clipboard content into the input field. This can be catastrophic!
- when the intention is to right-click sometimes I end up “middle-clicking”. This has resulted in browser panes closing without my permission, causing me to loose all my work
Disable middle click
I was expecting to have to put up with this really annoying behaviour but there are fixes.
The simplest is the use the great Gnome Tweak Tool. This is an “extra” set of preferences apart from the built in Ubuntu “settings”. In there you’ll find keyboard and mouse settings. Here you can disable the middle button completely.
You’ll have to install it from the Ubuntu software store. This little screencast video shows how to do it.
A couple of clicks and I’m not going crazy any more! This has made a huge different to my usage of Ubuntu and my Apple Magic Mouse.