Friday FOSS Fest The Reg FOSS desk is, as you might expect, mostly Linux-based, but your correspondent does keep Windows around for things like rooting smartphones and reflashing BIOSes. There are a few things I miss switching from Linux, and the handy functions of the middle mouse button are high on the list. This is where [1]Taekwindow scores.

If you're slinging a wheel mouse, you still have three buttons: your scroll wheel is the middle mouse button. You can click it as well as roll it up and down or even sideways.

If you've only got a trackpad with two buttons, clicking both at once simulates a middle-click. If you have 99 keycaps and no trackpad buttons at all… I feel bad for you, son.

[2]

On Windows or a Mac, the most common use for middle-clicking is easy: in most web browsers, it launches the target link in a background tab. That alone is a big time-saver (and why I don't use my Apple Magic Mouse).

[3]

[4]

But on most Linux desktops, it has two additional functions, and Taekwindow brings one of those to Microsoft Windows. (I'll come back to the third.) If you middle-click on a window's title bar, it sends that window to the back of the stack, putting it behind all the other windows. This is a quick and easy way to get at whatever was underneath that window, without moving, minimising, window-shading or anything.

Taekwindow does more than just that. One of them is another little-known Linux function that I don't need often but is hugely useful when I do. Normally, on most desktop GUIs, to move a window you drag the title bar. On Linux – again, in pretty much every window manager and desktop environment – you can move windows around by dragging anywhere if you hold down a modifier key on the keyboard – normally it's Alt. This enables you to move a window whose title bar has gone off-screen, or conversely, move the title bar offscreen so you can get at bits of the window that were off the bottom of the screen.

[5]

For touchpads with a left and right button (as above), click both together to simulate a middle-click. With smooth, buttonless touchpads, the ones that support multi-finger taps allow you to tap with three fingers at once to middle-click. (You have to enable tap-clicking in settings for this to work.)

It has other snazzy functions too. It only has one preferences screen, so have a poke around – you might find a need for things I don't.

[6]First they came for Notepad. Now they're coming for Task Manager

[7]Logitech Signature M650: A mouse that will barely emit a squeak or a clickety-click

[8]DIY Sinclair clones: Left it too late to back the Next? Build your own instead

[9]Fans of original gangster editors, look away now: It's Tilde, a text editor that doesn't work like it's 1976

Taekwindow is tiny, it's free and [10]open source , and you don't even need to install it: just run it and it works. This means you can use it on Windows boxes where you don't have admin privileges to install apps. What more could you ask? ®

Bootnote

That third function I mentioned is something Taekwindow can't help with. On Macs and Windows, there's only one way to copy and paste text: via the clipboard. First, you cut or copy to the clipboard, then you paste from the clipboard.

Linux has this but also offers a different way: select some text, point the mouse somewhere else and middle-click. The selected text is inserted where you clicked. This is as well as the clipboard, meaning you can copy two different pieces of text at a time.

[11]

For instance, copy the title of a web page (so it's in the clipboard), then select the URL. Move somewhere else, such as a social network in another browser or another tab, and press paste to insert the title, then middle-click to insert the URL. No repeated round-trips necessary.

There are Windows tools to bind middle-click to Ctrl-V, but firstly that doesn't give you two separate buffers, and secondly, it stops middle-click working in web browsers.

Get our [12]Tech Resources



[1] http://taekwindow.net/

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yf0HWlSJDsEB7uoGUSq-5QAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yf0HWlSJDsEB7uoGUSq-5QAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yf0HWlSJDsEB7uoGUSq-5QAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/02/01/shutterstock_trackpad.jpg

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/20/windows_11_build/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/11/logitech_m650/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/06/diy_sinclair_clones/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/17/tilde_text_editor/

[10] https://github.com/ttencate/taekwindow

[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yf0HWlSJDsEB7uoGUSq-5QAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/