Hi forum, I was wondering how to open the “specials menu” in edit mode without using the W shortcut - I can’t find it anywhere with the mouse and I find it rather disturbing that a menu can not be accessed by an other means than a shortcut. Or did I miss it?
The specials menu is only available by the shortcut. All the options in the specials menu are available separately in their appropriate menus (such as Mesh / Vertices / Remove Doubles)
It’s in effect a shortcut to other shortcuts that are in various menus and is context sensitive
Thank you very much! Now that makes sense.
Since you sound very knowledgeable, maybe you could tell me another thing that puzzles me : I can’t figure out why some functions are considered as “'tools” and appear in the “tools” panel, while some others appear in the “mesh” panel. Is there some criteria to tell them apart and to know where to look for them? Or are the functions in the “tools” menu only shortcuts to items that can all be found in other menus?
That may sound dumb but this would really help me: I don’t know if Blender’s interface is counter-intuitive, but it for sure is against my own intuition 
Well if all else fails, hit the spacebar and start typing in the name of the thing you’re trying to use. That can also bring up commands if you can’t recall where the button is or what hotkey is used.