Comment 3 for bug 511288

Below are the solutions I can imagine :

A. key pressed as mode selector

When pressing the shift key, the mouse cursor changes from a hand to a caret cursor. Next the mouse can be used for selection and automatic copy like it is currently doing.

B. button mode selector in the toolbar

2 buttons in the toolbar could display the current mode and allow to change it as well. One button could select the dragging mode and stay depressed until the user click on the second button which could select the copy mode. The second button would stay depressed while the copy mode is active.

C. Simultaneous operation of 2 previous solutions

When the mouse cursors comes over the copy mode button, an help ballon could display that this mode is accessible with the shift key too. When pressing the shift key, then the copy mode button state change to depressed and comes back to inactive state when the shift key is released or the user pressed the dragging mode button.