For number 2 on your list, I once tried setting things up that way but I found that it doesn’t work well for me. I use confirm on release so that I more or less in a ‘permanent’ tweak mode when modeling or animatiing putting marquee select on the LMB click ‘n’ drag killed that.
Well, no 2 is now default.
A confirm on release is not a problem, but the fact, that You can’t grab’n’drag anymore with LMB Select keymap. The grab action must be trigered with a key shortcut or with a tool, which is a pity and contintuitive. Most apps workt the way I described here:LINK and that’s what a common user expects. It must be done like that, since a normal/new user is an LMB Selec target group.
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well, since the mouse button choice appears at the splash screen, seems easy enough for both groups to go forward.
nothing seems to have been lost
It’s there for a reason. In many cases, you will have your object or other objects covering most of the viewport, so you will have no place to start the box selection at. The way you propose is actually exactly how it works in 3ds Max, yet I, and everyone I know have adopted an instinct of preemptively pressing Q key to first disable any active transform tool before starting a selection, so that you don’t accidentally move or select different object when it gets crowded. After I realized that I press Q key before any selection in 3ds Max anyway, then it kinda made sense that selection is an actual tool you activate before selecting 
So even if you have this “normal” behavior which you would expect, where you don’t switch between selection and transform tools, and LMB drag does different things depending on if you are above an object or empty viewport, it’s so inconsistent and unpredictable that you will end up always pressing button to first make sure your LMB drag will result in selection and not accidental transform.
Never used 3D Max, but I use many other apps, which work this way and never had any problems with context of the action being taken.
Maybe I don’t explain it clearly but that is exactly the problem I had, I just mentioned confirm on release because it sort of complete things for me but actual grabbing verts was the problem because as you click and drag it would just execute a box select .
I haven’t tested the latest build so I didn’t know that marquee select on LMB click and drag was now the default, this is a real pity.
Here is an example:
If you want to perform a selection inside of an object, which doesn’t start outside, then you first have to deactivate the transform tool, so that if you start LMB drag for box select, you actually do box select and not move instead. And since these situations change so often, it’s hard to think about the current context, so the brain just adopts a measure of always dropping a transform tool before performing a selection instead of first evaluating what would be the outcome of context based action.
So I am wondering how does the other software you use solve that?
The click and drag is really useful but not all the time.
I could live with a shortcut + drag to use it.
Is anyone else having the issue where edge loop select isn’t working with LMB?
Edge loop is supposed to be double left click, now with LMB.
I made a pull and it looks like everything works and is discoverable, now.
Only remaining problem is that works when you use a gizmo. And only some active tools have a gizmo.
That’s going to take some getting used to.
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Well, I investigate my CAD software and it seems that it works the way I described (even with very dense “scenes”) but in a slightly more complex way than my request reads.
It goes like that:
- LMB click, hold’n’drag = new Box Select
- LMB click, hold’n’drag + a modifier key (Ctrl/Shift) = Box Select that adds to / substracts from the selection
- LMB click within an object shilouette (Object mode) or a vertex/face/edge hotspot (Edit mode) + a modifier key (Ctrl/Shift) = adds to / substracts from the selection
- LMB click, hold’n’drag within an already selected object shilouette (Object mode) or a selected vertex/face/edge hotspot (Edit mode) = grab’n’drag
- simple LMB click and release outside the selection = remove all selection
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Yes, I guess this would be doable in 2.8. Even with the select tool not active, ctrl and shift + LMB could perform additive or subtractive box select. That’s how it works in my custom keymap
I’m like a broken record, but I feel like my setup addresses a lot of these things in a more “standardized” way.
http://edge-loop.com/images/blender/2.80.zip
Works with builds older than 2 days, this is latest build i tried it worked on: blender-2.80.0-git.c94f806dc73-windows64. I’m providing that build, download here:
http://edge-loop.com/images/blender/_blender-2.80-c94f806dc73-win64.zip
My 2.7x setup is pretty well documented. The start of this 2.8 that I shared is based on the same principles.
Custom inputs have been breaking as of lately due to recent changes, so I will have to rebuild this soon once things stabilize.
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Active Tools with left click is fine for me.
Context Menu with right click is fine as well.
But the need to go between selection, tool, selection, tool, is very wrong. It makes modeling really slow.
Couldn’t we have a first left click to select a component, then another one to activate the tool?
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I just tested, God I hate 2.8 my workflow is completely and utterly fucked at this moment.
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I just found out you have to press Alt+LMB to select a component while using extrude, bevel, inset, etc.
I’d go with something like single click to select, click and drag to activate the tool. It would be more intuitive.
EDIT:
In object mode works as expected, a single click selects the object and click and drag activates the tool (grab, rotate or scale.) It should work exactly the same in edit mode.
To those reporting usability issues introduced when switching to a left-click workflow, keep in mind that the initial commit was only the start and Brecht is still working things out.
Example.
https://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-blender-cvs/2018-November/116366.html
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"For that reason the LMB keymap now has a couple of differences
compared to before. These changes do not affect the RMB keymap.
- Context Menu: W -> RMB"
But what is the problem with W and LMB? Can anybody explain to me please? I am a LMB user, and I did not notice problems with W or B keys.
They could just turn the left click select mode into the full industry standard keymap. Haha. 