Felitendo
d3c82fdff8
Middle-click autoscroll for every Chromium-based application on the system: Electron and CEF applications, Chromium-based browsers, Flatpaks, Spotify and Steam, plus anything installed later. The flag goes into an Arch wrapper's <name>-flags.conf where one exists, and into a shadowing desktop entry where it does not. Steam gets its web helper script patched and -noverifyfiles on its launcher, because it restores its own files otherwise. Every change is recorded so it can be taken back exactly.
192 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
192 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
# middleclick-autoscroll
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Middle-click autoscroll — hold the middle mouse button, move the pointer, the
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page scrolls — for every Chromium-based application on the system. Discord,
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Vesktop, Equibop, VS Code, Obsidian, Signal, Spotify, Steam, Chromium-based
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browsers, and whatever gets installed next week.
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```bash
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paru -S middleclick-autoscroll
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middleclick-autoscroll enable
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```
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That is the whole setup. Nothing else has to be configured, and no file has to
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be edited.
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## Why this needs a program at all
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Blink — the engine inside Chromium, Electron and CEF — has had Windows-style
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autoscroll for years. On Linux it is switched off, because middle click is
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already taken by primary-selection paste. One command line argument turns it
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back on:
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```
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--enable-blink-features=MiddleClickAutoscroll
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```
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Getting that argument into one application is a five-minute job. Getting it into
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all of them, in a way that survives the next package upgrade, is not:
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- Some applications read a flag file, some don't.
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- Some ship their own copy of Electron, some use the system one.
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- Flatpaks see none of the host's configuration.
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- An application that starts itself at login uses a different entry than the one
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in the menu, and Discord launched at login used to behave differently from
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Discord launched by hand.
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- Steam takes no arguments for its interface at all, and puts back any file you
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change.
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- Every upgrade can undo the lot.
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## The interface
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`middleclick-autoscroll` on its own:
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```
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Middle-Click Autoscroll
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Autoscroll ON
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Applications covered 14 of 15
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Not identified 1 - see the applications list
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Steam ON
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New applications ON
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Last applied 3 minutes ago
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Applications pick this up the next time they are started.
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[1] Turn autoscroll on or off
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[2] Apply now
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[3] Applications
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[4] Settings
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[q] Quit
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```
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**[3] Applications** lists everything that was found, how each one is handled,
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and lets a single application be switched off — or an unrecognised one switched
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on — with the space bar:
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```
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Applications
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▸ Vesktop on (flag file)
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Discord on (flag file)
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Code - OSS on (flag file)
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Obsidian on (flag file)
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Signal on (flag file)
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Spotify on (launcher)
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Steam on (Steam)
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Cursor cannot tell
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```
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**[4] Settings** has the categories — Electron and CEF applications, browsers,
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Flatpaks, autostart entries, Steam, Spotify, whether to watch for new
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applications, and a field for extra Chromium arguments if you want any.
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There is a configuration file behind all of this. You are never asked to open
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it.
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## Where the argument actually goes
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Two routes, picked per application.
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| **Flag file** | Arch's Electron and Chromium wrappers read extra arguments from `~/.config/<name>-flags.conf`. This is the good one: it is the supported way to pass arguments, it survives package upgrades untouched, and it applies to a launch from a terminal as much as one from the menu. |
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| **Desktop entry** | For applications that ship their own binary with no wrapper, and for Flatpaks, a copy of the entry with the argument appended goes into `~/.local/share/applications`, where it shadows the system one. |
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Entries that already live in `~/.local/share/applications` — AppImages, web app
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shortcuts — are edited in place and the original is kept. So are the entries in
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`~/.config/autostart`, so an application that starts itself at login gets the
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same treatment as one started from the menu.
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An `--enable-blink-features` that is already there is **extended**, never
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repeated. Chromium keeps only the last occurrence of that option, so a second
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one would silently switch off whatever the first one enabled.
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## Steam
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Steam's interface is CEF and supports the feature perfectly well, but Steam
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builds the command line for its web helper itself and offers no way to add to
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it. The only place an argument fits is the script that starts the helper, inside
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Steam's own installation:
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```
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~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper_sniper_wrap.sh
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```
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Steam checksums that script at every start and restores it when it differs, so
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its launcher entry also gets `-noverifyfiles`. **The trade-off is real**: with
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verification off, Steam no longer repairs a damaged installation by itself. That
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is why Steam is a switch of its own rather than part of the general handling —
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turn it off in the settings and Steam is left completely alone.
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The script comes back on every client update. The watcher notices and puts the
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patch back.
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Starting Steam from a terminal without `-noverifyfiles` undoes it for that one
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session; the next start from the menu has it again.
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## Applications installed later
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A systemd user path unit watches every directory a launcher can appear in —
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`/usr/share/applications`, the Flatpak exports, `~/.local/share/applications`,
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`~/.config/autostart` — plus Steam's helper script. Anything new is handled
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within a second of being installed, whether it came from pacman, the AUR,
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Flatpak or an AppImage manager. There is no hook to install per package manager.
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## What it will not guess
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An AppImage keeps its payload in a compressed filesystem, so there is no way to
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tell from the outside whether Chromium is in there. Those show up as **cannot
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tell** and are left alone until you switch them on from the applications screen.
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Detection is deliberately conservative everywhere else too. A wrong "yes" would
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append an unknown argument to something that is not Chromium, and plenty of
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programs treat an unrecognised argument as a file name to open.
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## Undoing it
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```bash
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middleclick-autoscroll disable
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```
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Every change is recorded in a ledger as it is made, and `disable` replays it
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backwards: generated entries are deleted, edited files are restored from their
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backups, flag files that only ever contained our line are removed, and a flag
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file that was merged into loses exactly the one feature that was added to it.
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Files that were not touched by this program are not touched by it now either.
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Run this before uninstalling the package.
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## Commands
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| `middleclick-autoscroll` | the menu above |
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| `… enable` | turn it on, apply, start watching |
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| `… disable` | turn it off and put everything back |
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| `… apply` | apply to anything new (this is what the watcher calls) |
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| `… status` | what is covered |
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| `… list` | every application that was found and how it is handled |
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See `man middleclick-autoscroll` for the details.
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## Requirements
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Arch or an Arch derivative (CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Manjaro), bash, systemd for
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the watcher. Nothing outside your home directory is ever written to, and running
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it as root is refused.
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## Building from source
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```bash
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make
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sudo make install
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```
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`make check` runs `bash -n` and, if installed, `shellcheck` over every script.
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## License
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GPL-3.0-or-later.
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