True X-Mouse Gizmo

True X-Mouse Gizmo

True X-Mouse Gizmo (TXMouse) is a tiny freeware utility by Andy Polyakov that brings the X11 mouse behavior of Unix and Linux desktops to Windows. It lets you copy text simply by selecting it, paste it with a middle click, move the keyboard focus without clicking, and raise or lower windows with the mouse.

The program is a single executable of about 40 KB that needs no installation and runs in the system tray. Here are the main features of True X-Mouse Gizmo:

True X-Mouse Gizmo saves clicks by copying selected text automatically and pasting it with a single middle-button click, as on Unix desktops.

• Copy on select: marked text is placed into the clipboard as soon as you release the left mouse button, with no menu or keyboard shortcut needed.

• Middle-click paste: the clipboard content is pasted into the window under the pointer with a single click of the middle mouse button.

• Focus follows mouse: the keyboard focus moves instantly to the window under the mouse pointer, and clicking inside a window does not raise it.

• Click-to-sink: a right click on a window's title bar sends that window to the bottom of the stack, while a long right click still opens the window menu.

• Optional auto-raise: the window that has the focus can be brought to the front after a delay that you set yourself.

• Visual feedback: a small X next to the cursor and the X icon in the system tray show whether the current selection will be copied.

• Copy-replace heuristic: after a normal Ctrl+C copy, the next selection does not overwrite the clipboard, so you can select text and replace it.

• Quick toggle: a middle click while dragging with the left button switches copy-on-select on or off for the current selection.

• Exempted windows: X servers, remote desktop and VNC clients, MS Paint and some other programs are excluded by default, and you can add more.

• Registry settings: the auto-raise delay, the long-click interval, two-button mode and the exclusion lists are tuned through an optional registry key.

• Debugging window: a double click on the tray icon lists all open windows with their class names, which helps you set up exclusions.

• Easy start-up: put a shortcut to TXMouse.exe into the Startup folder to run it with Windows; to remove it, delete the shortcut and the file.

True X-Mouse Gizmo was designed for Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP and Server 2003, and users report that it still runs on Windows 10. The last version is 1.4 and the program is no longer developed. It is free to use and suits anyone who is used to the copy-and-paste habits of X11 desktops and wants the same workflow on a Windows PC.