What I’m interested to know is do people who use RMB in Blender also use it in other programs? Like, right click links in web browser or paint with right mouse button in painting program etc.
@BTolputt: See, I’m not really getting that vibe overall. I stay within a reasonable distance as to what is going on with Blender, and it’s sitting in a pretty respectable place, now more than ever really. I have never been one to pay close attention to the things you mentioned above like management, and the process, so maybe I would change my tune slightly, but like I said before, I don’t want to know. It’s an art program, and a really amazing one at that, so I don’t care if they play nude Twister at their offices. There’s just too much involved in trying to make a decent picture to care about what is happening in development, to me, that is. I know there are people who have things pending review and other personal issues with the powers that be, and that sucks, it really does, but I don’t envy any of the developers with all of the other stuff they already have on their plates.
on windows you can swap the primary and secondary mouse buttons while Blender internally still uses left click.
what would be great is of course if there was an option for your designated OS which gives you the swap as an option per program like you can do with graphic settings or another solution add this swap option into Blender while it internally uses the left click.
much faster solution than remapping every button and so on. 
other solution; optimize blender much more for graphics tablets and replace the mice.
now to other programs;
when using Zbrush or other tools with a graphics tablet, the left click becomes a non issue.
while holding the pen in the left hand, pressing on the surface has not to be like with a mice done with the middle finger.
It is definitely not a question of six-or-half-a-dozen.
The couple of people interested in expanding their cultural horizons should start from this wikipedia article. When you are trained to do something with ALL the applications in the world, switching to the opposite, just for one, is as painful as forcing a right handed person to use left handed tools for just one single task.
The issue of muscle memory paired with the traditional FOSS lack of care w.r.t. to past compatibility is the issue that makes me dread the day pie menus will be the standard way of interacting with Blender.
I am pretty new to Blender and I don’t really want to get involved in those UI discussions. In fact the numerous noisy threads about
it rather produce some wrinkles on my forehead (not because of the discussion but because of the noise). I also understand, that you just used RMB select as a hook in order to get at deeper issues. Anyways, as a tablet only user I have to strongly disagree with above quote. For me (!) RMB select is a blessing, works so much better with a pen. Muscle memory confusion would be the only thing I could bring up against.
So I wanted to say this, just to keep people from generalizing. As well keep in mind, that those who are discontent with any developer’s decision for whatever, tend to be much louder and more compassionate about it than those who might happily live with it and just don’t have the time or nerve to fight fights about it in internet forums or nonrepresentative polls. Like me… until now 
I really don’t get it. Interaction is always discussed on software forums, and if they are official forums of the software developer/company and if they interact and listen to the users of the forums, usually there is a consensus that pleases most if not all users.
I bought Affinity Designer a while back. The discussion about Alt(Opt)/Cmd function is as close as I can find to LMB/RMB.
Please look at it and compare to endless waste of server storage space that are generated here.
https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/661-option-drag-to-copyduplicate/?hl=option#entry2312
Moderation note: This thread is almost certainly guaranteed to be a lightning rod. If everyone could make my job easier and be civil (lay off personal attacks, don’t interpret challenges as personal attacks, and maybe, just maybe try not being rude to one another), I’m sure I’m not the only one who would appreciate it.
Regarding the OP, I don’t think you’re going to be able to avoid an actual discussion about the merits of RMB/LMB selection… especially since it’s mentioned in your title and the text of your post is long enough that most people simply won’t read it. That’s not necessarily your problem, but if you expect this thread to remain on-topic, you’ve set yourself up with quite the uphill battle.
And if I may address the subject without straying too far from being on topic myself, consider this: it’s been pointed that RMB select is one of many things that are different in Blender compared to other programs. And it’s true, Blender is different… its interaction model, the number of integrated features that would typically be covered by specialist apps, its development model, and a million other smaller things. I’ve always looked at RMB select the same way you do… but from the opposite angle. It’s an immediate and pervasive reminder that things work differently in Blender than elsewhere. It avoids an uncanny valley of interfaces… that is, the scenario where things are kind of like you’d expect, but not really. This can lead to an even more frustrating user experience (see, for example, the default Maya keymap that ships with Blender).
Now, a number of Blender’s features have, over the years, slowly slid towards more conventional interaction models (painting, sculpting, tracking, node interaction, the knife tool, etc.). This has been the leading factor in Blender’s internal inconsistencies. The fix is that either these relatively young additions need to be pulled back in line or the rest of Blender needs to be pulled in the direction of these newer features. The die seems to have been cast in favor of the latter. Of course, doing so is a harder nut to crack and will require a lot more development work and design than anyone currently expects. Some of the UI devs are running into that very fact now… hence the current presiding plan of gutting the whole map to a bare minimum of consistent hotkeys across all editors. Then additional keymap modules are loaded based on task. I’m not sure it’ll work, but it’s an interesting approach.
In any case, this whole process is going to take some time. I’m guessing that there’s a 50/50 shot of getting it to a usable state before the end of 2015.
Well, I can at least try to keep it on topic. Folks that want to fight that battle DO have an impressive array of other threads to choose from!
Without demeaning or diminishing that view, how is that any different from “Different for the sake of being different” or is it a justification of that principle?
I reckon it can be done a lot quicker, but that would require it getting some priority which (as even key members of the UI Team seem to concede) it is not.
Here I am again with a simple example from Affinity Designer. In most features and interaction it closely resembles Adobe offerings with a little Freehand thrown in. Then there is the ‘upgrades’ as I call them. Differences that most realistic people wouldn’t mind and would consider an benefit.
- If you multiselect layers you can paint on all of them at the same time -> PS/Illustrator you paint on last selected layer
- If nothing is selected and you try to paint it creates an layer -> Photoshop/Illustrator do nothing (warn)
These kind of differences that go against established grain (PS, Gimp, Krita, and most of other painting sw) I think are ones to aspire to. Not switching SPACE to BACKSPACE because you can.
It’s the difference between being a closet homosexual and being open about it. It’s the difference between leading the user on that Blender is like the other packages, then disappointing them, and just telling him upfront he’s not in Kansas anymore.
IMO you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Just count the number of keys and interactions in blender and multiply that by the time it takes to come up with an alternative and exchange a few messages about it. Then add to that the time it’s going to take to weed out the inevitable bad ideas when the new keymap hits the public.
It became boring to me, to have to help people on the support BA forum.
Questions like: “why I can’t loop select edges” etc etc .
Usual replies go like: “It works for me, nothing changed” etc etc
Well, LMB select mode + emulate 3mouse button is the case.
Hovering over the emulator you may read that it is not compatible with LMB selection.
The emulator is dimmed, however you can still enable it.
That’s a bad joke, right?
With all due respect, that neither answers the question nor were you the one I was asking. I was asking for clarification about his opinion, as it was his & his alone he expressed. I know from personal experience Fweeb is more than capable of answering for himself 
It took two years for Blender 2.5 so one would hope that the skills of the Blender Foundation hasn’t declined to such an extent that they can do that in two years and yet cannot manage just the keymap changes in the same period of time. If one sets a low bar of expectations, that’s all people live up to. I may indeed be disappointed, but I’d prefer that than to simply assume the BF cannot manage to accomplish a subset of what they managed to do three-to-five years ago in the same time period.
It’s not for the sake of being different. I really wish folks would stop propagating that entirely false meme. Blender is different. It has been for years (I daresay since inception). Not for the sake of it, but because it’s trying to be something different and because the folks developing it and designing it (Ton and others) have their own take on ways to implement known UI/UX paradigms (to assume that Blender devs are unstudied in UI would be false).
The thing about experimenting with UI, however, is that it’s not like a physics library or 3D library. It takes some level of commitment to trying it. You can’t just swap in and out UI paradigms. And for the most part, I’d say that the choices made in Blender have been very smart and forward-thinking… the core of many of them (non-overlapping windows, flexible layouts, reduced modality, and short travel distance on mouse behavior to name a few) have found their way into other software packages (note: I’m not saying the Blender influenced this; I’m positive those packages got there organically. I’m just saying that these are good UI principles that Blender had early on).
One of the things that a lot of people mention about open source software is that because the software isn’t being sold, there’s greater freedom in trying out different ideas. However, at the same time, whenever a package does try something different, it gets derided for breaking standards. Sometimes it’s the very same people saying both things. It’s a bit of a minefield for any developer or designer to try to navigate. For the most part, I’d say that the team behind Blender has done an admirable job.
from what I remember it wasn’t possible at first and didn’t work for some stuff like knife. But the input map got few changes during that time. Any way it is possible to use LMB with alt+LMB for rotation and shift/ctrl+alt for pan/zoom( it works for me ).but it have to be set manually and requires a lot of other modifications like manipulator and so on.
The problem is that the map was not refreshed for so long… and there is definitely no love for tablet users, but it still can be done which is important.
I think you misunderstand the question. I’m not saying that right-click select was chosen just for the sake of being different. I’m sure Ton probably thought (and still thinks) it was the better solution. I disagree, for reasons elaborated on at length in other threads, but not because I think he did it solely to be different from other software packages.
I was explicitly asking about the quoted justification you had made for RMB Select. Paraphrasing it as I understood it to mean, you believe that because Blender is different than other software in many of it’s other UI standards/interactions, having a different means of selecting objects than other software is a good thing too because it is “an immediate and pervasive reminder that things work differently in Blender than elsewhere”. In other words, right-click select is a good thing, not because it is the best option for selecting objects, but exactly because it is a different one than other applications use.
Please correct me if I’m misunderstanding your comments here because it does sound very much like a justification of RMB Select based on it’s difference from standards.
I don’t think there’s just one viable justification (because, again, I actually like and prefer RMB select in Blender… also for a plethora of reasons voiced elsewhere ;))… but I do think the justification is compelling. If there’s a nontrivial sum of the interaction differences in a program, there’s psychological value in having a clear signal that says “Note to ye visitors: things be different here”. As has been pointed out before, the smartness hidden in RMB select is the separation of action from selection… and that’s another pretty big interaction difference from other programs. Which mouse button is action and which is selection is, as you’ve noted, entirely arbitrary[1]. However, by choosing RMB for select, it does let the user know that they’re stepping into new territory.
[1]Sidenote: It is interesting that by keeping LMB bound to action and confirmation, Blender does match general convention… but no one gives credit to that. I think part of the reason is that people don’t have a problem with RMB select. Their core problem is with separating action from selection and RMB select is the symptom that they’re addressing. If you split the two, one of them has to go on a different button… otherwise, they’re not split.
new territory
Actually that does not count for the needs Blender is made for. Blender is a 3D software, meant to create 3D content. And it was even late to the show. Very most inventions happened in other 3D packages before. And also UI design was already more than adult and had standards when Blender went open source.
I don’t see any new territory here really. There are just a few crazy decisions left from the beginning that aren’t taken back yet.
I think part of the reason is that people don’t have a problem with RMB select.
Um, i do.
I wouldn’t say so. In my perception the main idea behind open source software is, because of its decentralized nature the swarm-intelligence makes sure that only the best features make it into the software.
But when there is something that opposes the swarm-intelligence, you get a lot of threads about UI/UX
Ummm welcome to ergonomics. Blender is what we in some industry’s call a legacy device. The general issue that comes with early starting devices and programs is they were started before there was an established standard, And any revamp to get them inline with the standard will cause significant issues no matter what or how you do it for ether the new or the established users, And most definitely for all of the people involved with development.
Now this doorstep will go back to learning blender as that is how I enjoy spending my time, And to those who enjoy whineing about butthurt i will let them do that as that is what they seem to enjoy.
As a side note anubis, You have made this a personal statement, And I will not forget it.