Change middle mouse button in Sublime Text

Question

On Sublime Text running on Windows the Middle Mouse button acts as select range, on Linux its Shift+Right click. How can I set the middle mouse button to be select range on Linux? Specifically Sublime Text 3 on Ubuntu?

Answer 1

You need to create a custom mouse map in Linux and add the relevant bindings that define the Windows behavior. In Sublime, create a new file with JSON syntax and the following contents:

[
    // Mouse 3 column select
    {
        "button": "button3",
        "press_command": "drag_select",
        "press_args": {"by": "columns"}
    },
    {
        "button": "button3", "modifiers": ["ctrl"],
        "press_command": "drag_select",
        "press_args": {"by": "columns", "additive": true}
    },
    {
        "button": "button3", "modifiers": ["alt"],
        "press_command": "drag_select",
        "press_args": {"by": "columns", "subtractive": true}
    }
]

Then, save the file as ~/.config/sublime-text-3/Packages/User/Default (Linux).sublime-mousemap. You should now be able to mimic the Windows middle mouse functionality in Linux.

Notes:

• This will work with both Sublime Text 2 and 3.
• For OS X, the path to save the file is ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages/User/Default (OSX).sublime-mousemap (note the OSX in the parentheses instead of Linux).