New user, a few questions

Hello. I'm a modo user and just discovered NVil. So far I'm absolutely loving it, and that's not something I say very often. I have a couple of questions.

Is it possible to cycle through the selection modes with one button? In modo I press space to switch between vertex/poly/edge mode.

Is it possible to change the way the perspective viewport rotates? I want the "trackball rotation" that is in modo, it feels a lot more intuitive.

Thanks!

There is no selection mode cycling tool yet, but it should be quite easy to make.

I am not so sure what 'trackball rotation' is. Can you explain?

I really don't know how to explain trackball rotation, but you can try it out in blender. kun, blender has both turntable rotation which is what Nvil uses and track ball.

kinda like what you got with no locked axis I guess but you should try it out.

The ability to cycle selection modes would be very nice.

About rotation: What Passerby said. Basically completely free rotation.

Another question: If I activate a tool from a button, I don't have to hold down a key, but if I activate the same tool with a shortcut, I have to hold the key down. Is there a way to just activate a tool with a single keypress and keep it active?

And can I set the options for shortcut activated tools anywhere? I want the extrude tool to always use "cursor control" for example.

You can do that by using the streamline tool. For example, in the default setting, in polygon mode, A+MMB is polygon extrude with cursor control option.

If you are not sure what streamline tools are and how to set them up. see Help > Contents > Tutorials > Modeling Samples > Set Up A StreamLine Tool.

You can activate a streamline tool without hotkey from 'Tool Search' window, radial menu, a button in user tool window( a user customizable tool window).

If you want to tap a hotkey to activate a streamline tool without the need to keep pressing the hotkey, there is a streamline tool option 'Allow tap to live' for each streamline tool.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

And about my previous question? ("Another question: If I activate a tool from a button, I don't have to hold down a key, but if I activate the same tool with a shortcut, I have to hold the key down. Is there a way to just activate a tool with a single keypress and keep it active?")

See my edited previous post.

Perfect, thanks.

The selection mode cycling tool is added. You can bind it to a key, radial menu, user button or a streamline tool's WMB Up/Down events. Please let me know if it works to your expectation.

That was fast. Thanks a lot, I'll check it out.

Next question: is there a way to make NVil portable? Can I have the settings on a USB key instead of in my windows/user catalog?

Nevermind about the portable question, found it...

If you want to go the DropBox way, you can check this thread at post #63
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=116573&page=3

I actually wanted to run it from my dropbox and it seems to work.

Also, the cycle selection mode works perfectly.

I'm figuring things out and I really like that I can customize just about everything.

Another question though I can't figure out how to turn off the transform manipulator that pops up when I've selected something. Can it be turned off and not be shown until I activate a transform tool?