Bug#869338: [gnome-terminal] Double-click no longer selects URLs; workaround doesn't seem to work

[Conrad Hughes]

Package: gnome-terminal
Version: 3.22.2-1
Severity: normal

--- Please enter the report below this line. ---

[I'm submitting this partially for documentation so that others can
find the solution if there is one.]

The pattern for double-click-select-words in gnome-terminal used to
select most URLs.  Now it excludes ':', so fails to select URLs by
excluding the protocol part.  This has been the subject of numerous
debates elsewhere, including upstream, and regardless of the rights or
wrongs there appears to have been a documented workaround. 
Unfortunately that does not appear to work on gnome-terminal in
stretch.

In particular, there apparently used to be gconf settings which allowed
sufficiently-motivated users to restore old behaviour through some
command line work, by setting "word-char-exceptions" on their gnome-
terminal profile.  My attempts to do this have failed; indeed that
setting doesn't appear to exist any more.  Any suggestions as to an
alternative?

Upstream issue related to this bug:

  https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=730632

Ubuntu discussions of same:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-terminal/+bug/1463072
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-terminal/+bug/1501250

Supposed fix:

  https://muug.ca/pipermail/roundtable/2015-December/004433.html

Personally, while I can appreciate the rigid logic of the new approach,
I don't think usability == rigid logic; the old behaviour which
recognised most URLs as words was useful.  I think it would have made
more sense to explicitly make word selection recognise whole URLs when
they were detected, rather than prevent that behaviour.  That aside,
any guidance as to how to restore the old "bad" behaviour for those
recidivists who appreciate it would be most gratefully received.

--- System information. ---
Architecture: 
Kernel:       Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64

Debian Release: 9.0
  500 yakkety         ppa.launchpad.net 
  500 stable          repo.vivaldi.com 
  500 stable          dl.google.com 
  500 stable          deb.opera.com 
  500 stable          deb.debian.org 
  100 stretch-backports deb.debian.org 

--- Package information. ---
Depends                             (Version) | Installed
=============================================-+-================
libatk1.0-0                       (>= 1.12.4) | 2.22.0-1
libc6                                (>= 2.9) | 
libdconf1                         (>= 0.14.0) | 
libglib2.0-0                      (>= 2.42.0) | 
libgtk-3-0                          (>= 3.20) | 
libnautilus-extension1a       (>= 3.21.92-3~) | 
libpango-1.0-0                    (>= 1.14.0) | 
libuuid1                            (>= 2.16) | 
libvte-2.91-0                    (>= 0.45.90) | 
libx11-6                                      | 
dconf-gsettings-backend                       | 
 OR gsettings-backend                         | 
gsettings-desktop-schemas          (>= 0.1.0) | 
gnome-terminal-data                 (>= 3.22) | 
gnome-terminal-data                 (<< 3.23) | 


Recommends                    (Version) | Installed
=======================================-+-===========
default-dbus-session-bus                | 
 OR dbus-session-bus                    | 
gvfs                                    | 1.30.4-1
yelp                                    | 3.22.0-1


Package's Suggests field is empty.