It is a 'feature'. If you are like me and hate this 'feature', it can
be disabled with user_pref("middlemouse.contentLoadURL", false); in
user.js/prefs.js.
Minko Markov wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just noticed something, both 0.9.7 and the latest
> nightly. Clicking the middle mouse button *not*
> on a hyperlink, but simply somewhere in a page, causes
> na attempt to open an url with the current X clipboard
> selection. Say, the last X selection you did was in
> an xterm (kterm in my case), you selected the
> "network.pdf" string. Afterwards, in Mozilla, you
> try to middle-button-click a hyperlink, in order to
> open it in a new window, but you miss the the hyperlink
> and middle-button-click somewhere next to it. Then
> you get a message "www.network.pdf could not be
> found. Please check the name and try again" :)) That's
> how I discovered it.
>
> Seems like a feature, but can be confusing for someone
> that is not aware of it. If the clipboard content is big
> -- e.g. the above paragraph -- mozilla would still try to
> open an url with this name, and then the error message is
> very confusing. It basically quotes the whole text, followed
> by the "Please check the name and try again" thing,
> which the user will most likely miss. Worse, if the
> selection is accidentally a valid url, or can be
> expanded to one with ".com" at the end, one goes to
> a some seemingly random page and has no clue how
> he/she got there.
>
> Just some thoughts.
>
> Regards,
> Minko Markov
>
