Thread by @electrode3D

Saw this person telling people to go away for a respectful disagreement🤷‍♂️. So I want to elaborate on it with reasons

Here's a thread about why Blender's agnostic Selection mode -> Operator system can be good, fast, and is purposely designed. #b3d

Hope you all find it helpful.

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1643799723848105984

Long story short, you can:

Use mass selection tools from one type to execute operators for another type without switching modes

Execute operators that work with multiple types

Convert and combine between selection types

Rely on predictable knowledge of what types are made of

Simplest example. To make this letter 2D you delete vertices. Selecting them by selecting the face is the fastest way to do it (count the actions). Vertices can even be out of view. That equivalence, face = vertices, reliably tells me the vertices are selected

Compare it to using box selection from vertex mode. All the vertices need to be on screen. You may need to align the view. It's a drag action. It might catch something different so you have to deselect. Or instead use a lasso and try to be precise, etc, etc

Sometimes, to affect all the vertices you want, the fastest way to select them is with an edge selection operator. No need to switch. (eg Select edges with same face angle > Vertex bevel)

Sometimes, to affect all the faces you want, the fastest way to select them is with a vertex selection operator. No need to switch (eg Select vertices with same number of edges > Grow selection > Inset)

Sometimes, you want to operate on the faces you just created from beveling edges alone, which are already conveniently selected in edge mode. No need to switch. (eg Grow selection by pattern > Bevel > Extrude)

Sometimes you do want to operate on multiple types of things. Why not? (eg Extrude Faces and Edges)

These examples may seem contrived and not natural, but I rely on these countless combinations in production, for cleanup, archviz, product, hard surface, character topology...

It's like school. You may think "I'll never need this" but once you realize the potential, you naturally start seeing all the places you can use it, and regret not using it sooner

You can switch selection modes if you want, and that will preserve that which is already selected. But if you hold Ctrl when switching, you can expand/contract the selection to any adjacent to the previous ones (eg select one vertex to quickly select all edges that connect to it)

Why is this allowed? Because operators already know what data they need. If you happen to have it selected, regardless of the means to arrive there, they'll work, and if you don't, they won't. Operators also have different modes to them. It's all mix and match to give you freedom

For example, extrude has multiple modes (Alt+E to see them all, btw), instead of each extrude being binded to a selection type, which makes no sense, or rather, only make sense until you run into corner cases

There's something to be said against "smart" context tools that don't account for corner cases, so they hinder rather than help. When you could instead use the building blocks for selections/actions as separate things you do yourself anywhere, which ironically, makes you faster.

This means that if for whatever reason a particular selection tool made for one type happens to select the other type faster, you can be the one smart about it (you can also use Shift while changing selection modes to select multiple types at the same time)

Now, it's not a big deal. Software designed another way will have its own advantages/disadvantages and even do the same stuff. So you might still ask "why don't they just change it to make it standard and at least remove the learning barrier?"

The funny thing is that there's now software adopting some of Blender's way of doing things to the point they're a new standard. EmberGen(gizmo and toolbar), PlasticityCAD (a bunch of things), HallwayTile (GRS keys), even Cinema got mocked for the new icons.

If there are any objective reasons why a workflow is better than another, hopefully now you've seen a couple of Blender's strenghts. If this is all subjective and cultural, just admit you don't want to learn new software, that it's hard to unlearn. I humbly admit to both

Shout out to @jacek_grzesiek for being unfairly dismissed, it fueled me to make a thread elaborating on what I feel is true. Shout out to @JulienKaspar for the level headedness

Question What generic name is the most proper for vertex/edge/face? Here I call it type, they called it component, but the truth is I have no idea.

I'll compile further critiques, counterarguments and tips in this same thread.

First of all. Ctrl+X. It's contextual to the selection mode. That's one click saved with no menu (if you don't need to switch modes and happen to want dissolve instead of raw delete)

You can also bind any deletion mode to any shortcut. Nested menus mean little in Blender, operators is what matters. You may already have shortcuts to submenus or operators directly, or you can create new ones.

Second, someone pointed that other programs have auto conversion between selection types, which I acknowledged can be the case. But if you have to switch, that still means Blender takes the same number of steps, 3, for actions with a menu, and 2 for actions without menu.

So: Mass select> switch type> delete
Becomes: Mass select > delete menu> type

Counting varies if you consider switching modes a forced action, or a convenient place you happen to be at, because you first need to be in the mode that allows for the mass selection you want

And again, if there's no menu and it's a direct operator, that's one step less

Regarding visual "clutter". Having the related edges and faces highlighted is not clutter, it's informative. Go back to the letter example. With a glance you know that all vertices are selected even out of sight. The edge highlight is useful too 👇

https://twitter.com/Socket_775/status/1645596782020132870?t=ml8lI48QDVG0Yq_Q3M26yg&s=19

Maybe coming from other software it's scary seeing faces select "oh shoot, I don't want the faces to be affected" but if the operator you use only affect vertices or edges, then it shouldn't matter to you.

It does matter for Duplicate, which is the worst offender since there's only one.

And to a lesser extent for Extrude or Delete since there are different types for each in a menu and the choice is flipped, the choice happens at the menu instead of at the type selector.

Of course you can bind any delete or extrude type to keys of your choice. If you see any operator, Right click it to pop up the binding options without even going to Preferences

But the takeaway is that if the overall workflow is faster because the upsides of these design decisions, then flipping the choice of delete every once in a while, or having an extra click in an out of context example, is balanced by all the actions you save every other time.