Hi all,

Sorry if this is answered elsewhere but I've been Google-ing around and can't find anything about it.  I'm about a week into trying to seriously learn Blender and the need to constantly move my mouse down to the bottom of the screen to click in order to switch between Face, Edge and Vertex selection in edit mode is driving me nuts.  Hovering over them shows no shortcuts for these and I can't find them in the User Preferences to set up my own shortcuts (looked under Mesh options and tried just searching for "select", "edge" or "face").

Every other modeling program I've tried out has hotkeys for this but if there is just no way to do it in Blender then I'll accept it and just learn to live with it; all the other cool things about Blender outweigh this one annoyance. :)

Can someone please point me to where they are located in User Preferences so I can set up shortcuts for these?  Or failing that, is there an add-on like the pie menus maybe that lets you switch quickly between them?

Thanks for any help!

Control + Tab will bring up a menu you can select what ever element you want. Also if you right click on the element on this menu you can assign it your on shortcut. Also if you shift click on each element (at the bottom of the 3d view) you can then select anyone of them.  :)

Aha!  That Control + Tab was exactly what I had in mind!  I like the shift click on the different options too - thank you! :)

Always glad to help. :)

If you take it one step further by using Ctrl+Tab then either the 1, 2 or 3 keys for vert, edge, or face you don't have to move your mouse when you make your selection.

Thank you!

If you take it one step further by using Ctrl+Tab then either the 1, 2 or 3 keys for vert, edge, or face you don't have to move your mouse when you make your selection.

Thanks for this tip I did not know that one either 

If you take it one step further by using Ctrl+Tab then either the 1, 2 or 3 keys for vert, edge, or face you don't have to move your mouse when you make your selection.

Thanks for this tip I did not know that one either 

I think it should be mentioned that, as far as I know, this trick only works if you manually assign each mesh element mode to a hotkey first.  You'd have to CTRL+TAB to bring up the mesh mentu, then assign vertex to hotkey 1, edges to 2, and faces 3 from the menu, the same way you assign any other hotkeys.  Then you must save the preferences, or else the changes will reset when you end the modeling session.

@maxxmodelz - These key assignments are already in Blender, it doesn't require any further customisation.

Lux reassigning the 1,2,3 keys is good idea. You swap between elements way more often than layers. I had them assigned to the brackets and backslash. Not nearly as convenient.

@keppel

I think Maxxmodelz is referring to assigning permanent hotkeys to the sub element modes, allowing you to bypass the CTRL+TAB menu altogether. For instance, I've permanently assigned the numbers for each sub-element mode to keyboard numbers 1, 2, and 3 respectively, but I had to do it by manually re-assigning those keyboard shortcuts from the default. If you are working from Blender factory settings in Edit Mode, then 1, 2, and 3 on the keyboard are assigned to switching between layers. You can re-assign them, if you wish, to jump instead between vertices, edges, or faces modes, by changing the hotkeys in the ALT+TAB menu. This way, you don't need to bring up the menu selection at all, saving you several clicks in your modeling session.

In the CTRL+TAB menu, right click on Vertices, and then choose "Create Shortcut", then put your mouse in the field, and tap the key you wish to assign to vertices. You can do the same to Edges and Faces. Save Preferences, and now you have instant hotkeys assigned to sub-element modes, and no longer need to bring up the CTRL+TAB menu going forward. This can save you at least two mouse clicks every time you wish to change sub-element modes. Keep in mind, doing this overwrites the currently assigned hotkeys for those numbers, and you lose the ability to switch to different layers with those same hotkeys, but I personally found it much more useful and time-saving to have those hotkeys assigned to sub-element modes. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks, Luxxeon! I remember reading about the hotkey thing in the modelling forum a while back, and put my modes to 1,2,3 back then. It really really made a huge difference in easily switching between modes, and helped my modelling work better. Thanks for that tip.

HMorton posted at 3:24PM Mon, 24 August 2015 - #4223362

Thanks, Luxxeon! I remember reading about the hotkey thing in the modelling forum a while back, and put my modes to 1,2,3 back then. It really really made a huge difference in easily switching between modes, and helped my modelling work better. Thanks for that tip.

I remember the thread you're talking about, Harry. I made the same change, and it's a big improvement in my opinion too. Now when I need vertex mode, I just click 1 on my keyboard, yadda yadda. It saves a few seconds from having to select from the list, or icons on the UI. When you do a lot of modelling, saving seconds on something that is done often can convert to minutes, and minutes eventually can save HOURS of work in the long run. It all adds up. Having these kind of things as hotkeys saves mucho time during a big project, and that's more time that can be alotted to rendering, or something else.

Yeah, I agree. It's a big time saver. I don't know how this isn't the default, because it makes a big difference in how fast you can get a model done. I'm sure most will agree that you tend to switch between vertex, edge, and face modes waaayy more often than you would switch between layers during the course of a modelling session. But it's still a testimony to the power of Blender that we can customize it to our workflow in such a way. Blender is amazing.