There’s not a lot of documentary support for the Bend Tool, everybody seems to work instead with the Bend Modifier.
My attempts to get any use out of the Bend tool have come up zilch: the cursor doesn’t even make an appearence, so if the modifier is more useful, I’d understand.
What’s the scoop?
Yep, it’s poorly designed. I guess no one used it so much as to warrant coding better usability. Which is a shame. I mean, whether it’s worth it or not is up to user, I guess. It does work after all.
Hey, it is a good tool BUT (1) it is veiw port dependent (2) 3D cursor dependent (3) mouse pointer dependent. Do not use it in ‘perspective’ mode.
Nah, I don’t think it is good at all. It’s WAY too hard to control what it’s doing, and the fact that it is mouse cursor dependent makes having it in a MENU farcical: the menu choice determines the placement of the mouse, so immediately it’s useless and the user is forced to use the hotkey.
Only using the ALT key makes it passable as a tool, so why isn’t THAT the default behavior?
Thirdly, there’s no “after-action” panel (the normal F9 panel that pops up after most actions) so it’s a “get it right the first time” proposition.
There’re 3 strikes right there: the menu/cursor placement, the defaults, and the after-action. I can see why the Modifier is preferred.
Really, users are exhibiting a lot of Stockholm syndrome: they’ve learned to suffer the crappy UI so they think they others should just put up with it.
Ya, I get what your saying but you use the short cut (Shift + W) (2.7x) not the menu…
That’s funny - open up any version before 2.5 then you have a valid point 
I realize I’m still learning, but MANY apps have a far more gradual learning curve.
And if something CAN’T BE USED FROM THE MENUS, it really shouldn’t be in the menus. I mean, it’s just >silly<. Why would that ever have been coded that way?
The Blender devs devotion to re-inventing the wheel when the wheels that exist are perfectly fine is not a virtue. They could have plagiarized any number of apps for reasonable approaches to bending – admittedly, once the Bend Modifier existed the pressure was certainly off.
Perhaps it will be deprecated in the future.
Toodles!
-=out=-
Yes, you are prob right about the learning curve and more to your point of it may be an over sight. Please allow me to clarifiy something about the tool, until your post I did not even know you could invoke it outside of EDIT mode, as I understood it’s more of a modelling tool (I use it) So yah I can understand your post and frustration if you used it in OBJECT mode - it does nothing to a single object. Just a hint about the Bend (Simple deform) modifier, it only works on the ‘Y’ axis, FYI
This is a support section of the forum. Asking “why” here isn’t likely to get you an answer. And, sadly, lately responses from devs to such questions often amount to “it works like this because this is the way it works”.
If you can make a better UI for the tool, feel free to do so. Complaining about it in this section is useless.