[Bf-funboard] Thoughts on multi-select mode.

[Paweł Łyczkowski]

Hi all, I love Blender!

tl;dr - Could selecting an element in multi select mode DID NOT select it's 
parts? Eg. select an edge and it's vertices remain unselected?

Seems stupid? Let me explain why I think it's not.

I discovered recently that turning more than one select mode on is possible 
(eg vertex + edge), and was thrilled by it, because it could make modelling 
even faster in Blender. But I soon learned that it is not so, because of 
some operations that seem not practical for me, here are examples:

- Selecting an edge with all modes on, pressing ctrl-e and choosing select 
edge loop selects the edge loop properly. I thought that this command is 
equivalent to alt-clicking an edge, but it is not so. Alt-clicking an edge 
selects, well, a few edge loops i think - vertex, poly and ege loops? A lot 
anyway, which is useless. I suppose that this command executes "select edge 
loop" on each edge vertex and poly that is selected by clicking on the edge. 
Could it be overridden to execute the command on the clicked edge only?

- Selecting two parallel edges from a side of a cube with all select modes 
on selects also their vertices, which selects also the other two edges, 
which selects the whole face. So when you select the two edges, and execute 
"erase edges" - 4 edges are erased. Not practical, I can do that by clicking 
on the face and choosing "erase edges", which is more intuitive.

This all is due to the way the multi select mode works now - selecting 
element selects it's parts. But the multi select mode (or a new mode) could 
be awesome if selecting element did not selects it's parts. It would be not 
always logical, because you could select an edge, and then add one of its 
end vertices to the selection, and for eg. "extrude" would be confused which 
one to extrude, the vertice or the edge? An I suppose a lot of problems 
would arise, but I think they would all be solvable.

But there would be a lot of benefits. You could for eg. select two edges in 
a cube, erase them, then without changing the selection mode continue to 
edit vertices.

Well, maybe it is a stupid idea, but I think that minimizing the need to 
change the selection modes would be a good thing.

Cheers
Paweł Łyczkowski