Doc:2.6/Reference/UserInterface/MouseButtons

Usage of Mouse Buttons for basic Operations

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The mouse is probably the most frequently used tool to interact with Blender. In almost every section of the tool you will perform many hundreds of mouse clicks within a single working session. The usage of the mouse buttons can mostly be classified into 2 very basic interface functions, namely Selection and Action

Selection

Typically you move the mouse cursor to what you want to select, then you select it by clicking, or double clicking a mouse button. So basically "selecting" means you specify your point of activity. In Blender we use in general the right mouse button (RMB) to perform a selection.

Action

While something is selected you click a mouse button and then drag the mouse to perform some action like moving the selected part around on your screen. So "acting" performs a change of the selected part, like move, rotate, scale, scrub, paint, etc. in all these cases you initiate the action by clicking and holding a mouse button, then moving the mouse until you are done, then release the mouse button to indicate "end of action". In Blender we use in general the left mouse button (LMB) to perform an action.

Unfortunately there are a few corner cases where action and selection might inter twin. And some parts in Blender even violate the principle such that now RMB selects and LMB takes action (examples follow).

Separating Selection from action

• RMB: To select an item
• SHIFT +RMB: To add more items
• LMB: to perform an action on the selection