Using the MMB can be problematic. Most mice use a wheel as the MMB and it's easy to accidentally rotate it when you're clicking. I'd like to avoid it if possible.[/li][/list]
We've always used MMB when deselecting, so why would this be an issue? I've had a mouse with a wheel for the MMB ever since I've started using Anim8or, and probably have done thousands of deselect actions with it.
I'm not so sure that points with just 2 edges remaining should be merged.
There's always Merge Faces in case you want to keep such points.
Steve, the important thing about it is that it's being used as a part of the topo tool where it cleans up as it dissolves. Doing it like #1 is doing the dissolve without the cleanup. While doing in-depth modeling where I'm making tons of cuts and moves and dissolving, there are far more cases where I want the solo points gone, than the cases where I want them to stay.
If you implement a standalone dissolve tool then you can add two modes for it -- soft dissolve and hard dissolve, where in soft dissolve it doesn't cleanup but hard dissolve it does. By the way, in XSI, hard dissolve deletes the 4-sided plane when dissolving the edge that bisects it. It doesn't pick one side or the other. I kind of agree with deleting it since logically that's what it should do when hard dissolving. So basically, it'd do everything in #2 except it'd delete that middle plane.
I also still stand by the mouse configuration I first mentioned, since I think shift and ctrl need to remain feeling like modifiers in order to enhance familiarization with the tool. In fact, if you want to use Ctrl to further enhance this tool's capabilities...
- LMB: Knife
- Shift+LMB: Add Edge w/ auto fill
- Ctrl+LMB: The original cut faces tool
- MMB: Hard Dissolve
- Shift + MMB: Soft Dissolve
- Ctrl + MMB: Collapse
- RMB: Move component
- Shift+RMB: Move component along normal
- Ctrl+RMB: Merge component (drag point to another point and it snaps and merges it to that point...drag edge to edge to merge)
This way, Shift is a supplement action, Ctrl is a alternative-type-but-similar-to action.