The pointer can be used to select (copy), and extend-select text, paste text from other terminals or applications, and bring up a menu.
The left mouse button can be used to initiate a selection. If the mouse button is clicked once, and dragged, then characters are selected individually. If you drag past the vertical boundaries of the window it will scroll to keep up.
If the left mouse button is double-clicked then the selection will be by word-characters. Hold the mouse button down on the second click to drag the mouse and enlarget the selection. The word-characters are defined in the preferences dialogue under the word class option.
Finally, if the left mouse button is tripple-clicked and held, whole lines are selected as you drag the mouse up and down.
The middle mouse button can be used to extend the selection. Simply scroll to where you wish to extend the selection to, and click the right mouse button. Again, single, double and triple click-drags will result in by-character, by-word, or by-line selection.
For all cases, releasing the mouse button automatically copies the selected text into the clipboard, and may be pasted to other applications. Note that any screen output will reset the rendered selection, but this does not lose the clipboard contents.
If the middle mouse button is pressed, then the current selection is pasted into the window. This can be used to transfer text from other applications.
If you only have a 2-button mouse, then your X server probably has a method of emulating the middle mouse button. Refer to your X server documentation for further information.
If you have a wheel'd mouse (which sends mouse button 4 and mouse button 5 events), then you can use the wheel to scroll up and down through the scrollback buffer.
The pointer can also be used to bring up a control-menu, which can be used to reset the terminal, or bring back the main menu bar, if it has been hidden.
While holding down the CTRL key, the right mouse button can be used to display this menu.
Drag and drop can be used for a number of operations within the terminal.
If files are dragged into the terminal, then their full filename is pasted into the window. URL's can also be dropped in this way.
A colour can be dragged from another gnome application, or from the colour selector into the display. If they land on a character, it sets the foreground colour, otherwise it sets the background colour. Refer to the colour configuration section.