Is there a way to "pick" objects in 3d view instead of entering their names?

Hey there.
Something that really annoys me in Blender is the fact that I couldn’t find a way (maybe it’s not possible at all) to “pick” the object in 3d scene by clicking with the mouse instead of entering its name in a object input line edit. It doesn’t make sense that if you’re seeing the object you need to select it to know what’s its name and type that in a qlineedit.
Thanks.

uhm, you select objects in the viewport by rightclicking. if you’re new to blender here’s some great getting started tutorials: http://cgcookie.com/blender/category/getting-started/

There’s many of other ways to select objects… select/deselect all (a), box select (b), circle select (c, mousewheel adjusts size), lasso select (ctrl+leftclick&drag). In those modes middle mouse is used to deselect. Also look inside the select menu of the 3d viewport, there’s more specific stuff like select similar types, select by types or layers, mirror, grouped and linked stuff…

Not sure exactly what you want but blender allows dragging and dropping from the outliner window or Ctrl+C on an object to copy its name and Ctrl+V to paste its name into an object name box such as that used in the boolean modifier. If you want to type its name you don’t need the full name , just the first letter

@gexwing: Nah, that’s basic stuff, I’m a long-term Blender user, you can be damn sure that I know at least how to select objects. :smiley:

@Mr. Marklew:
I know you can do that, but I’d like to simply click the object in a 3d view. If memory serves, there was a version of blender in which you had to select both objects to apply a boolean :). Anyway, I was thinking about something like middle-clicking the line widget or clicking on the cube or something, and then clicking on the object in a 3d view. It doesn’t sound something that hard to do and would be very useful.

A good workaround is to select the object, then hover the outliner and press “.”, it will show the selected object, then you can drag’n’drop the icon to any object box. This way you doesn’t have to care 'bout objects names. One of the best features of Blender is that you can go without naming objects. Naming objects sucks seriously. :slight_smile:

not quit certain what yoru talking here

you can select with RMB then shfit RMB for adding more ob!
but need to be around center of the object!

unless you want to do something else!

i never selected an object with name
apart of doing it in the outliner !

salutations

It was in 2.4x that you needed to type the names of the objects in the various modifiers/constraints.
In 2.6x you can select from a drop down menu that gives you a list of the objects instead, much faster (though you can still type if you wish)

You can type the first letter of an object and then press Tab to autocomplete. If you keep up good naming conventions it should be too inconvenient. I agree though, that selecting two meshes and then running something like a modifier should automatically use those two meshes.

@m9105826: Selecting two objects isn’t the best way to do that, but as I said, when you activate an object input box (either by clicking it or any other way), it should allow you to click on objects in a 3d view instead of typing their names. Like when you click on an object its very name appears on the box as if you have typed it there (even if there’s autocomplete, you still have to type, unless you have only 5 objects in your scene).
It sounds magic, but it doesn’t seem very hard to do, maybe a very simple workaround would be to make the box “get” the name of the object selected next, so, for example, there’s a checkbox like “get next selected”, then you activate that checkbox and the object input box will get the name of the object you select next. This sounds something that an experienced developer would do in a few minutes. Of course I’m assuming the code isn’t a mess and the thing is fully object-oriented. This would also be useful for inserting the same object in various inputs at once.

@other guys: I know how to use blender :).