We’re Just Not Clicking (Premium)

I recently wrote about an isolated issue with keyboard shortcuts in Windows 11. Here’s a problem with touchpads and right-clicking. But this one isn’t isolated: It impacts everyone.

Touchpads–trackpads, clickpads, whatever you want to call them–are interesting. They come in different sizes, offer different capabilities, and can be mechanical or haptic-based. But when you strip away all the details, they all offer the same basic features. You can use them to move the mouse cursor around on the screen and single-click (“click”) and right-click on-screen items. Just as you do with a mouse.

It’s the right-click bit that’s broken.

Different touchpads handle this action–which was briefly called secondary-click in deference to the lefties in the Windows user base who swap how the two primary actions work–differently. I assume every touchpad out there lets you click anywhere on the surface of the touchpad with two fingers to trigger the right-click action. And some also let you single-click in the lower-right corner of the touchpad–or perhaps some “zone” on the right side of the touchpad–to trigger a right-click. (Less common are dedicated buttons for the various click actions, but they exist as well.)

What I’m looking at here explicitly is the “standard” or most common touchpad action that triggers a right-click: The two-finger tap gesture. It’s enabled by default by Windows if you have a PC with a touchpad. We’ve all used it.

We’ve also all failed in using it. You’ve probably blamed yourself. I’m here to tell you that it’s not you. This is a bug in Windows. Or, more properly, a mistake. The wrong behavior.

Here’s what happens. Or, one example of how this bug occurs in the real world.

You select a block of text in some app, right-click it with the touchpad, and choose “Copy” in the context menu that appears. Then, you navigate to another app and paste that text into it. You could do this second (paste) action with the touchpad, type Ctrl + V, whatever. It doesn’t matter.

Sometimes it works. Maybe most times. But sometimes it doesn’t. Either nothing pastes. Or it pastes the item you previously copied to the Clipboard. This indicates one of two things. That the Copy action you just tried failed, or the Clipboard is empty or contains an item that is incompatible with pasting into the current app.

(To be clear, it doesn’t matter which apps you use, or what kind of PC or touchpad you have. This is universal.)

But how could the Copy action fail? You blame yourself. We all do. You must have made a mistake. So you do it again. And this time, it works. Maybe. Sometimes you have to try yet again. Eventually, you’ll figure out something that works and you move on. Most probably don’t think about what just happened. Or realize it’s not their fault.

Let’s think through this logically.

You select some text. You right-click it using the touchpad. You select “Copy.” But it doesn’t copy. Why? And what did it do?

I can tell you what didn’t happen (most likely): You didn’t not click “Copy.” You clicked the thing. You heard it. You probably felt, in the tip of a finger or two fingers, that it clicked. It’s just that Windows didn’t copy the selected text to the Clipboard.

This isn’t on you. This is on Windows.

Here’s my theory. Because touchpads can handle both single- and double-clicks, the latter of which is assigned to the right-click action, Windows sometimes registers a right-click action when you select “Copy” from the context menu. That is, you didn’t click “Copy,” you right-clicked “Copy.” And because that action is nonsensical–Windows doesn’t even handle that event, apparently–it’s just ignored. So even though you clicked the thing–heard it and felt it click–you didn’t click the thing, as far as Windows is concerned. And so the text didn’t get copied to the Clipboard.

And I know what some of you are thinking.

That’s how Windows is supposed to work. It’s correct. You didn’t click “Copy” and so the text was not copied. Windows is absolved. You’re just a sloppy touchpad user.

Bull$%^t.

My answer is, that’s bull$%^t. I mean, maybe you are a sloppy touchpad user. I am. We all are, probably. But Windows should handle any kind of click once a context menu is opened. Because there is no version of a user ever double-tapping–right-clicking–a context menu item to cancel the operation. No one would ever do that, try that, or assume that it would work (in canceling the operation). But the instances in which a user would mistakenly right-click, thanks to the different ways different touchpads work, is extremely high. In fact, I do this all the time. I do this every single day. I did it several times while making the show notes this morning for Windows Weekly. It happens every week.

And while I’m not a professional software developer, I know enough about how Windows and Windows apps work to know that the OS and its apps should handle this event correctly. And by correctly, I mean, it should always do what the user intends. And in this case, that intention is clear.

Think about it.

You have an item in the Clipboard. You select some text, right-click that, and a context menu appears. You move the mouse cursor down towards the “Copy” menu item, and when you get there, you … what? You click it, that’s what. That’s the only thing you will do that will result in a click action of any kind. You will not click in any way–right-click, middle/tertiary-click, whatever–to cancel that operation. If you realize you’re making a mistake, that whatever is already in the Clipboard is too important to lose, you cancel that operation by moving the mouse cursor away from the context menu. Then you click there or tap the Esc key. You do not click in the menu.

This is on Windows. This operation should always work, whether you’re a sloppy touchpad user or not. And while there may be some vague accessibility-based reason for this behavior, that’s the exception, not the norm. For most people, most Windows users, the default behavior here is objectively wrong. Incorrect. Even though it’s almost certainly working exactly as Microsoft designed it.

So yeah, let’s get outraged about the Control Pane not going away, I guess. Or, let’s focus on those things that actually impact all of us, every single day. Like this ridiculous problem.