Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Operating System specific notes

This tutorial covers user-interface issues that are specific to particular operating systems or window managers. Read the section that applies to your computer; you may skip the rest.

GNU/Linux

 Alt + LMB  is used for changing the angular view on two angular axes of the 3D View window, if  Alt + LMB  moves the current window, then there's a conflict with your window manager. You can resolve the conflict or use  Ctrl + Alt + LMB  or  MMB  instead. (Also, you may have activated Compiz->Rotate Cube. Default configuration for rotating the Cube is also  Ctrl + Alt + LMB ; you may have to change this binding to an alternative configuration.) If you are running KDE this can be resolved by:  RMB  on the title bar of the main Blender window → select Configure Window Behavior → go to Actions → Window Actions → in the Inner Window, Titlebar and Frame section → select the Modifier key to be  Alt  and set all the select boxes beneath it to Nothing. An alternate method within KDE might be to  RMB  click on the title bar of the main Blender window; then select Advanced → Special Application Settings... → Workarounds and then click Block global shortcuts with Force selected and checked.

In Gnome, Click System → Preferences → Window Preferences. Look for the last three options Control, Alt and Super. Select Super. Or in Xfce, click Whisker → Settings → Window Manager Tweaks, and in the Accessibility pane, change Key used to grab and move windows to Super. Now you can press and hold  Cmd  or  ⊞  to drag windows around, and use  Ctrl  and  Alt  as normal.

KDE

Under KDE,  Ctrl + F1  through  Ctrl + F4  are by default configured to switch to the corresponding one of the first four desktops, while  CTRL + F12  brings up Plasma settings. You can change these in System Settings.

Alternatively you can suppress global shortcuts while inside blender by adjusting the kwin rules for this application, which you can access with a  RMB  click on the title bar of the window and pressing more actions->add program rule.

Gnome

You'll want to disable the Find Pointer functionality in Gnome, which will impair your ability to use certain functions such as Snap to grid and the lasso tool. If your mouse pointer is being highlighted when you press and release  Ctrl , go to: Mouse in Gnome's Desktop Settings and uncheck the box Find Pointer.

Ubuntu

As of Ubuntu versions prior to about 09.10 (“Karmic Koala”), there was a known incompatibility between Blender and the Compiz Fusion accelerated (OpenGL) window manager used in Ubuntu. By default, Compiz Fusion is enabled in Ubuntu, causing the problems to manifest themselves in Blender as flickering windows, completely disappearing windows, inconsistent window refreshes, and/or an inability to start Blender in windowed mode.

The fix for this is simple. Install compiz-switch (might be in universe). Go to Applications → Accessories → Compiz-Switch. This will disable compiz temporarily. Do the same to turn compiz back on when you're done using Blender.

This is no longer needed for current releases of Ubuntu.

Mac OS X

You may need to press  Fn  in order to use the  F1  through  F12  keys.

To expand a section in Blender, you would usually press  Ctrl + UpArrow . On a Mac, if “Spaces” is enabled, you may have to use  Ctrl + Alt + UpArrow .

Microsoft Windows

Two Ways to Launch Blender

Blender requires a console for displaying error messages, so if you launch Blender by means of an icon, two windows will appear: the graphical user interface plus a console window. Closing either window will terminate Blender. These windows are indistinguishable in the Windows taskbar in versions of Windows before Windows 7, which leads to confusion. Also, launching this way does not provide any way to pass command-line arguments to Blender.

Launching Blender from a command prompt is extra work, but it overcomes these issues:

1. Start → Run...
2. enter cmd
3. enter cd c:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender
4. enter blender

Blender version 2.6 onwards doesn't have this problem, and hides the console window by default. You can show it by clicking Window > Toggle system console

Sticky Keys

Pressing  Shift  five times in a row may activate StickyKeys, an accessibility option which alters how the computer recognizes commands. If a StickyKeys dialog box appears, you should  LMB  the "Cancel" button.

If you don't need the accessibility features, you can disable sticky keys:

1. Start → Control Panel (OR search for "Accessibility Options" on the Start menu/Search)
2. double-click on Accessibility Options (Ease of Access Center in Windows 10)
3.  LMB  the Keyboard tab
4. for each of the options StickyKeys, FilterKeys, and ToggleKeys:
   1. clear the Use … checkbox
   2.  LMB  the Settings button
   3. uncheck the Use Shortcut checkbox in the settings
   4.  LMB  the OK button for the settings
5.  LMB  the OK button for Accessibility Options/Ease of Access Center.

Multiple Keyboard Layouts

On systems with multiple keyboard layouts, pressing  Shift + Alt  can alter the layout. (For instance, it might change from QWERTY to AZERTY or vice versa.) Because of this issue, Noob to Pro avoids  Shift + Alt  hotkeys.

If you find your keyboard layout altered, press  Shift + Alt  again to change it back.

You can also disable the hotkey:

1. Start → Control Panel
2. double-click on Regional and Language Options
3.  LMB  the Languages tab
4.  LMB  the Details button
5.  LMB  the Key Settings button
6.  LMB  the Change Key Sequence button
7. uncheck the Switch Keyboard Layout checkbox
8.  LMB  the OK button

Additional Resources

• Input method editor keyboard shortcut (CTRL+SHIFT+0) switches the input language in Vista — Microsoft Support Knowledge-Base
• StickyKeys at Wikipedia.