Introduce option to right click to copy

[mitchellh]

Discussed in #4381

^{Originally posted by 7ijme January 2, 2025}
When I right-click, I don't want a context menu to open. I want it to copy the current selection.

This is what it looks like now:

Solution

We should introduce a new configuration option copy-on-right-click (similar to copy-on-selection), boolean default to "false" that can be set to true by those who wish for this behavior.

When true, context menus are disabled and text is copied. When mouse reporting is enabled, this should also copy so long as there is an active selection.

We should make this work on both macOS and Linux. This is more prevalent in the Linux world but I see no reason to disallow it on macOS since it's opt-in.

[LovecraftianGodsKiller]

I second this.

I'd also like an option for middle-click to paste; unless it already exists.

[peterhowe-adwanted]

I use the middle mouse button (via Logitech Options+) for Mac's Mission Control, so it would be great to be able to have paste on right click as I already use copy-on-select = true.

[jzetterman]

I don't mean to hijack, but would it make sense to do right click to paste while you're doing this work as well? See 3783.

[han5]

In other terminals, you right click on a URL and it gives the option to Open Link.
At least quick select / copy will work as well.

[chenzhiwei]

There is already a copy-on-selection, I think a paste-on-right-click is more useful.

In Windows Terminal, the mouse behavior have more optoins:

Left-click and drag your mouse to create a selection. Double-click expands the selection by word, whereas triple-click expands by line.

If you are holding the Alt key, you will create a block selection (as opposed to a line selection). Block selections create a rectangular region that do not wrap to the end of the line.

If you are holding the Shift key, you can explicitly expand the selection to a specific point on the terminal without the need to click and drag.

Once you have a selection present, you have a few options. A single left-click will clear your selection. If you actually want to use it, you can right-click to copy the selected text to your clipboard and clear the selection. If you right-click again, the contents of your clipboard will then be pasted into the terminal.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/selection#mouse-support

[IamTheLime]

I believe the intended feature is something along these lines Right Click to Copy MR

[jcollie]

Before we start merging pull requests, we should really spend some more time thinking about the best config for this.
Having a dedicated copy-on-right-click config seems way too specialized. Things will quickly get out of hand as we want to do other things with mouse button actions. In particular, pasting (instead of copying) with right click seems like a viable option as well. If we don't develop full-blown mouse button remapping as discussed in #3848 we should at least make the right click config a little more extensible.

I'd recommend something like this:

right-click-action = open-context-menu
right-click-action = copy
right-click-action = paste

open-context-menu would be the default.

[mitchellh]

Things will quickly get out of hand as we want to do other things with mouse button actions.

The goal with this was to solve a short term problem. Long term, we need a generic mousebind (akin to keybind) config to specify mouse behaviors in general and move away from our hardcoded approach. There are various issues requesting this and something I'm committed to, it's just that mouse bindings tend to be less important than keybindings so they took a lower priority.

I'd be fine considering right-click-action for now as well, but I'd be afraid that'd lead to a lot more complexity as people try to add more right click actions, suggest introducing left-click-action, etc. When what we really need are arbitrary mouse bindings. copy-on-right-click seems analogous to copy-on-select (also a mouse binding, a left-up-action when a selection is active).

I suppose my main argument is I'm not sure its worth added complexity for now, this is just a particularly common request.

For your right-click-action = paste request, is that requested somewhere?

[jcollie]

For your right-click-action = paste request, is that requested somewhere?

#4404 (comment)
#4404 (comment)

[00-kat]

For your right-click-action = paste request, is that requested somewhere?

There's also #3438 and #3783 and #5145. The second is from the same author as the first comment jcollie linked, so deduplicating would mean four separate instances.

Multiple people in those discussions I linked seem to want both copy and paste on right click (copies if there is a selection, pastes otherwise), perhaps that should be accommodated by right-click-action too?

[jcollie]

Here's a potential syntax for a general mouse button action config. The performable prefix is mainly meant for use with the open-url or copy-url actions which would make that action a no-op if there's no URL underneath the click (or similarly no selection). A subsequent action could then open a context menu.

mouse-button-action = (performable:)?(left|right|middle|button-\d+)\+(press|release)(\+(single|double|triple|[1-9][0-9]*))?=(open-menu|open-url|copy-url|copy|select-and-copy|paste|select-word|select-line|unbind)

The difference between copy and select-and-copy is that select-and-copy will select a word if the click is not on an existing selection.

If we're not ready to implement that, right-click-action would be forward-compatible:

right-click-action = select-and-copy ==> mouse-button-action = right+press+single=select-and-copy