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Left-clicking and right-clicking while holding the left button triggers an odd selection mode: deactivate this?

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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When I left-click on text and hold the left mouse button, then right-click, first release the right button, then the left button, a "selection mode" is activated, where the end of the selection follows the mouse pointer despite no button is held. In principle this looks like a useful feature (or it would if the scroll wheel worked in that mode, which it doesn't). But at the same time, the context menu opens when the right button is released. So we trigger two features at once, making both less useful, because they're getting in each other's way.

This frequently happens to me when double clicking on a word and right clicking to open the context menu on it. Accidental overlap of the left and right clicks triggers the selection mode.

Can this behaviour be configured (e.g. to use a custom shortcut) or, if not, be deactivated entirely?

I'm using Firefox 123.0.1 on Linux (openSUSE Tumbleweed).

When I left-click on text and hold the left mouse button, then right-click, first release the right button, then the left button, a "selection mode" is activated, where the end of the selection follows the mouse pointer despite no button is held. In principle this looks like a useful feature (or it would if the scroll wheel worked in that mode, which it doesn't). But at the same time, the context menu opens when the right button is released. So we trigger two features at once, making both less useful, because they're getting in each other's way. This frequently happens to me when double clicking on a word and right clicking to open the context menu on it. Accidental overlap of the left and right clicks triggers the selection mode. Can this behaviour be configured (e.g. to use a custom shortcut) or, if not, be deactivated entirely? I'm using Firefox 123.0.1 on Linux (openSUSE Tumbleweed).
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Try changing ui.context_menus.after_mouseup to false in about:config.

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Setting it to true solves the problem. Thank you very much!

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I wonder if this is specific to Linux? With mine set to the default value of false on Windows, I can't trigger the selection mode you're getting. ??

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# Whether context menus should only appear on mouseup instead of mousedown,
# on OSes where they normally appear on mousedown (macOS, *nix).
# Note: ignored on Windows (context menus always use mouseup).
- name: ui.context_menus.after_mouseup
  type: bool
  value: false
  mirror: always