move regions between tracks

I am trying to move regions between tracks and want to keep their exact position.

According to the manual I can do this by using the middle mouse button, but neither the middle button from my mouse, nor from my trackpad shows any effect (if I click it, nothing gets selected, if I click it together with the left button, the region can be dragged but does not keep its position). Outside Ardour the buttons are working as defined.

Is there any other way to move regions as described? Or any way to reassign a key to take over the function of the button? (I thought of xmodmap - I am using linux - but don’t find the correct syntax)

You don’t have a middle button on a trackpad.

The binding is “middle-button drag”. Not “middle-button click then drag with some other button”.

On OS X, since so many users are stuck with stupid mice without a middle button, we do allow Ctrl-Option-left-button to substitute for the middle button.

However, in addition, since the manual section was written, new functionality was added for this, which is the notion of a constrained drag modifier. If you drag with button 1, you get free dragging along the X and Y axes. If you press the constraint modifier, then we impose an x-axis constraint on the drag, so that you can only drag across tracks with no x-axis motion. By contrast, if you drag with button 2, you can only drag across tracks with no x-axis motion. But if you press the constraint modifier in that case, you get a y-axis constraint to the drag, so you can only move within a track, and not across them.

The default constraint modifier varies by platform (Alt on Linux and Windows, Cmd on OS X), but it can be adjusted from Preferences > User Interaction > “When Beginning a Drag …”

On Linux, many window managers steal Alt-button1 for window dragging, so you may need to override it. The Windows modifier (corresponding to the key on your keyboard with the Windows ™ icon) can make a good substitute (though it would be nice if window managers used that instead, eh?)

Cool, thank you. This solves it.

(But I am pretty sure I am seeing a middle button on my trackpad. Well, unless you define those buttons not as part of the trackpad but of the trackpoint. http://www.laptopmag.com/images/wp/purch-api/incontent/2012/05/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X230_g16-620x400.jpg)

Tangent, sorry, but FWIW, my HP EliteBook 8540w most does indeed have a middle button on the trackpad. (Two actually: one set below it and another set above it.)

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/processed/csm_IMG_1550_Kopie_06_be71ab4b32.jpg

They do seem to be pretty rare on lap-tops in general, however, so I appreciate the one on this model. I’ve been wondering whether the newer Lenovo lap-tops (2015 and later, T or W series) have all 3 buttons - the on-inline info seemed kind of ambiguous when I looked a few months ago.