I view having to drag as unnecessary complexity. It doesn’t matter if other apps do it that way, I only care about whats most efficient. The way i suggested would only require two clicks to place a loopcut while in slide mode.
Then you should go for the click and drag. It’s obviously most efficient… 
Or if dragging is that important, theres no reason that cant work in slidemode. Click and drag to place the cut, release to confirm while in slidemode. Press S again to get the regular mode. Even centering could be done with the alt key in slidemode like you want.
In short, the way I have it pictured, it would work mostly the way you guys want, while keeping users who like the old method happy.
Since the goal is to improve the tool, we can change it’s behaviour to make it better.
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I don’t get what you mean. I am talking about changing it to make it better.
Just for completion, Hexagon:
SHIFT to snap on the mid edge point
This is similar to XSI, though, XSI has a panel when you can edit the cut position afterwards until you delete your history by freezing the model.
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The preselection part could also show the number of segments and the distance between them.
And could show the result of the tool without clicking one time.
- Activate the tool > preselection
- Mouse wheel for segments
- LMB and drag for distance
- if ok, click and it’s finished
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As @Thornydre suggested, you could use the MMB wheel to change the cuts number, all before committing the cut, which in part is the default behaviour that Blender has at the moment.
At the moment it’s Slide and Loop Cut.
I don’t want to get too much into the weeds of this discussion, but here’s specifically how we plan to make this tool work:
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When the Loop Cut tool is active, the user can move the mouse cursor over any edge to see a loop cut preview.
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To set the cut, the user simply left clicks on the edge. No further steps needed.
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Optionally 1, the user can click and drag to slide the cut instead.
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Optionally 2, if the user wants to snap the cut to increments, they can hold down Ctrl.
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Optionally 3, if the user wants to increase the # of cuts, there are two ways: 1, by increasing the Cuts # value in the Tool Settings, or 2, by using the scroll wheel while dragging the cut.
We can’t use the scroll wheel to set the cuts value at any time while the tool is active, because of the fact that it is no longer a blocking operation. Scroll wheel is already used to zoom the view, and it can’t be two things at the same time.
This should give you an idea of how we plan to change the way this tool will work.
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Could holding down CTRL, SHIFT or ALT be used to allow the mouse wheel to add the cuts?
I’m actually ok with that. 
Do you plan to keep the preview centered in the middle of the faces like the current loopcut tool? One of the issues with that is the fact that it is sometimes hard to see the pre-selection when you are zoomed in a lot. We need some option to see the pre-selection near our cursor.
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Ok so we need to press one time to place the cut and then add the other options like we do now.
It will need to use the tool setting to adjust that.
It could be better to not have to use it to do what we wants.
Having to look else where to setup the tool slow down the workflow.
We should not compensate with the tool settings.
We should change that, I think, exactly for the reason you outlined. Also, because if the preview is always in the middle, we can’t make the tool work as outlined above, where users can simply left click on an edge to set a cut anywhere along the edge, without needing to always do a slide operation if the user wants to make an off-center cut.
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Will the number keys (in both keymap) work here as changing the number of cuts?
Dragging (so holding LMB) and scrolling at the same time is something I tried with other tools and it’s a close to impossible maneuver.
Please don’t make that necessarry for anything!
I’ve just had an idea. If automatically sliding the preselection highlighting is too processor intensive, why not just show an estimation instead. Like, if the cursor is close the the center, the highlight is in the center. If the cursor is close to the edge of the face, the highlight is halfway between the edge and the center of the face.
Clicking and dragging automatically slides the edge starting from the preselection. If we press a key before clicking it could toggle on the classic behavior of the loopcut tool where you just click and enter the amount you want it to slide (this mode would be on until you press the toggle key while the tool is active again).
Ok so, the wheel is no longer for the segments.
We have 2 buttons on the mouse
- LMB to activate the tool
- RMB to click to place the cut
(inverted in LMB selection mode)
- Shift to Snap increment
- Ctrl to snap to the center
- X or S to activate Symmetry
- With Drag LMB we could change the segments
- Shift + Drag LMB we could change the distance
- With Space we could move the cut along the edge and Shift for the increment
Or we could use keys but I prefer with Shift, Ctrl and Alt
If we have to relay on the tool settings we will loose time.
Why placing wouldn’t be done just by hovering over the edges ?
Oh no, that’s a bad idea actually
It’s not a big deal, at least in every other 3d app… It runs just fine.
No, like william said, by clicking on the edge.
It’s in more than one action.
Click and edit.
- Click to place
- Drag LMB for segments
- Shift + drag LMB for distance between segments
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