Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by philsnow 1052 days ago
> dragging the text to a new tab to perform a web search

I had no idea that this worked. I don't "get" intentionally dragging if there's any alternative.

I feel like one of those people who tells people that frowning takes more muscles than smiling, but: dragging seems like it requires so many more muscles to be engaged than the keyboard shortcuts for copy/newtab/paste and then enter.

3 comments

The way I see it, it's a feature that exists which some people use and prefer. Breaking it (intentionally or accidentally) just isn't something I want to see.
For sure, I'm not saying any browser should change this behavior. C-x M-c M-butterfly and all that.
Ha, different strokes for different folks I guess.

Usually when I'm reading something, my hands are off the keyboard and I use one hand to scroll with the mouse. In this scenario, it's so much easier to double-click to select a word and drag it to a new tab instead of reaching for the keyboard.

I totally get that. I had to check what my muscle memory would do in that situation. (Apparently) I select text, right-click, and then choose "search for <selected phrase>" from the context menu.
There isn't an alternative that lets you search for the text in a new tab while staying on the current tab.