[SUB][This is not a thread about how good or bad the LMB Select issue feature is/will be. It is about WHY people make a big deal of it when there are so many other UI issues they could have chosen. Please flame about why RMB Select is so much better in another thread. Thanks in advance.][/SUB]
OK, something that continually comes up in UI/UX discussions is the question:
“Why is LMB Select such an issue for people?”
At a glance, the question has an incredibly obvious & valid foundation. After all, the bugs & inconsistencies introduced by switching to LMB Select in the user options is not really that much more/worse than other inconsistencies in the Blender UI we all learn to live with. If one can change the setting, it’s not as big a deal as everyone makes out right?
To answer that question one needs to accept that using the left-mouse button to select is an almost universal standard across all modern applications that “edit” things the user is creating. Be it a graphics application, desktop publishing suite, or scientific tool - using the left mouse button to select elements the user can see before them is a consistent standard that applies across the UI. If one cannot or will not accept this foundation, you might as well stop reading now because you’ll never understand the issue. I’m not going to argue about it here (it’s been shown repeatedly in the forums and is accepted by the UI team - so that’s enough for me). It is, however, an axiom that you need to accept in order for this to make sense.
So despite over a decade of people pointing out the issues in Blender’s flouting of standards that existed well before it started and hasn’t shown any signs of going away, the default in Blender is still RMB-Select. Despite attempts by sebastian_k and others to justify it, the choice of right-mouse over left-mouse is relatively arbitrary. If one ignores tablet users (for whom the reasons to have left-mouse select are even more numerous), pretty much any argument one can make for RMB-Select applies to LMB-Select. So, if one ignores the idea of standards from elsewhere, the argument between RMB-Select & LMB-Select is simply one of choice, switch all right-clicks to left-clicks in the code and the arguments for/against one become arguments for/against the other.
In other words, what Ton/BF choose as the default is a matter of choice for them… if he/they ignore the rest of the world’s software and the standards that have evolved out of the morass of choices over the decades we’ve been developing/using them in the home & office for graphics & visual editing purposes. And this is the issue in a nutshell.
Ton/BF like RMB-Select. It’s been stated multiple times and it’s his/their veto that has prevented a change multiple times in the past. The reason we have had the default application violate probably one of the most commonly accepted standards in mouse usage in a graphics application for over ten years is due to the personal preferences of those at the top of the Blender development chain of command. And that is the reason LMB-Select is such an issue for people…
LMB-Select has become representative of other arbitrary UI (& even non UI) decisions that make no sense beyond the personal preference of Ton/BF. It’s not the most important issue in the minds of those who are frustrated with decisions made about what is & isn’t good for users (I can think of at least three UI changes I would rate as highly). It is, however, one of the easiest to point to as an example of stubborn intransigence, arbitrary decision-making, what-have-you from the gatekeeper(s) of Blender trunk/main. It encapsulates most of that which frustrates those that see good ideas (& good patch implementations) shot down at the hands of Blender leadership and it affects every user of Blender equally (whereas, say, coloured wireframes is something most users could ignore).
Everyone using Blender is affected by the choice, the decision is arbitrary if one ignores UI standards, and people looking to change it for both new users & those using Blender in a pipeline get shut-down due to the personal preference of those at the top. It would be hard to find any other issue that brings all those grievances together under the one umbrella.
tl;dr: LMB-Select is an issue, not because it’s so much more important than every other UI decision, but because it is representative of the struggle people have getting Ton/BF to let go of features/decisions they have a personal attachment to. If he/they cannot do so for something as obvious as abiding by the LMB-Select standard adopted by pretty much every other graphics application out there, what chance is there for objective decisions elsewhere in the development process?