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Sometimes when selecting with the mouse, I select everything other than what I intended to select due to the mouse moving slightly above or below the line being selected. For example, in your address bar place the mouse pointer after the hostname "superuser.com" to select "/questions/806549/mouse-selection-based-on-initial-mouse-movement-direction" in the URL. Now drag to the extreme right to select the entire path and query string. Now move the mouse up a few pixels. AGGHH now "http://superuser.com" is selected, but the parts you tried to select are not selected!

Is there any way to configure KDE, or any other environment or component (X?) [1] to understand that when the user is dragging to the right the intention is to select the text after the point of click, and when the user is dragging to the left the intention is to select the text before the point of click? [2]

When it was only me having this issue, I though that I'm just unskilled with the mouse (VIM and Vimperator user) so I'll live with it. But I've seen this happen to other people as well. You can't fix the mother in law, and you can't fix the secretary even though she's a heavy solitaire player and apparently skilled with the rodent.

Non-answer: Silly Dotan, just pull down when scrolling to the right and pull up when scrolling to the left.

Rebuttal: That might solve the issue for me, but what about grandpa and the secretary?

  1. I use Kubuntu Linux, as does the secretary, but failing an answer for KDE I'll accept an answer for any other desktop environment on any OS.
  2. Note of course when selecting RTL text (Hebrew, Arabic, Persian) that the directions will be reversed.
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  • Just a note: did you notice than after you exit (AGGHH) of few pixel if you came back of the same few pixel, without releasing the button, you have back your selection? :-) I notice now
    – Hastur
    Sep 3, 2014 at 7:20
  • @Hastur: Yes, however the issue is that the entire process (click, drag, release) happens in one fluid motion with no stop-check-verify stages in between. That is why the situation is frustrating: the fact that sometimes the wrong part is selected means that we need the whole stop-check-verify procedure. Since the user expressed intent from the beginning (direction of initial drag) it should be possible for the system to compensate.
    – dotancohen
    Sep 3, 2014 at 7:24
  • I'm afraid this is a behaviour characteristic of firefox (I guess you refer to it). If you try with dolphin you will not have to experience it. Your question remain valid.
    – Hastur
    Sep 3, 2014 at 7:56
  • @Hastur: You are right, Chrome does not suffer this either. Open Office Calc suffers the problem when dragging to the left but not when dragging to the right.
    – dotancohen
    Sep 3, 2014 at 8:02

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