Add option to stop mouse buttons four and five from simulating middle button (scroll wheel) click

bugsmith

What does your feature entail? What is it for? How will it affect existing workflows or user experience?
A previous suggestion was implemented to have mouse buttons four and five map to back and forward respectively, which matches with the behavious of Firefox and Chrome.

Unfortunately, these buttons also simulate a middle mouse button click. This can be irritating, because if you press them while hovering over a link or a large image acting as a link, then you will inadvertently open an additional tab.

This also interferes with some extensions, such as autoscroll.

What are the exact ways that you see a user using your proposed feature? Please go into as much detail as possible, and provide examples of how other browsers/apps implement this feature, if applicable. If your feature suggestion adds on to an existing feature, how would it work into it to extend its usefulness?
This seems to be a feature of Safari and / or WebKit. So it does make sense for the behaviour to be consistent with that. Therefore, I suggest there is an option in preferences to prevent mouse buttons other than button three (the scroll wheel / middle button) from simulating a click and opening additional tabs.

This would make it consistent with Firefox and Chrome, where these buttons only perform forward and back operations and do no otherwise interect with the UI or DOM.

Vlad

As somone not using a mouse other than magic mouse on a Mac, I am completely at loss understanding what is being requeted here 🙂

Please describe the desired change step by step.

bugsmith

Hopefully this is clearer:

Current Behavior: Some web browsers, like Firefox and Chrome, allow the side buttons on a mouse, typically controlled by the thumb, to act as "back" and "forward" buttons for navigation. These are buttons four and five.

Problem: These side buttons can unintentionally simulate a middle mouse button click. This can be frustrating because it might open extra tabs when you accidentally click them while hovering over a link or a large image acting as a link.

Issue with Extensions: Additionally, this behavior can interfere with browser extensions, such as autoscroll. Autoscroll scrolls the browser when the middle mouse button is clicked and the mouse dragged up or down. Currently these side buttons also emulate this middle mouse button as well as the back and forward functionality.

Proposed Solution: To align with the behavior in Firefox and Chrome and enhance the user experience, the suggestion is to add an option in the browser's preferences. This option would let users prevent the side mouse buttons from simulating clicks and opening extra tabs.

Result: By implementing this feature, the side mouse buttons will work just like in Firefox and Chrome, exclusively performing back and forward operations without triggering unintended actions in the browser

Vlad

bugsmith

: To align with the behavior in Firefox and Chrome and enhance the user experience, the suggestion is to add an option in the browser's preferences. This option would let users prevent the side mouse buttons from simulating clicks and opening extra tabs.

What is this option called in those browsers?

bugsmith

Vlad Apologies for my lack of clarity here. It's not an option in those browsers, it's just the default behaviour. What I'm suggest is that Orion has an option to match that behaviour.

Vlad

OK so no option, just default behavior.