New user, a few questions

I think that's the selection mode tool. I GUI it is an arrow button next to the manipulator buttons. In default settings, it is assigned to the 'Selection Tools' streamline tool with hotkey Q. So you can just tap Q key to toggle it on/off.

But then every time I drop a tool with ESC, I drop selection mode as well?

Do you think it's better that ESC command should not drop selection mode?

Track ball style navigation is added. Escape won't turn off selection mode any more.

Wow, that's great. Thanks! I just bought a license.

Two more questions: Is there a command to join two or more adjoining polygons into an NGon? I guess I could select the edges and just delete them, but it would be a lot faster to just select polygons and join them.

And another noob question. I have some trouble using the bridge tool, or maybe I'm using the wrong tool. I have two separate meshes in the same object and I want to bridge edges across the meshes, but it's not working. I can only bridge edges on the same mesh.
Also, do the polygons I'm bridging have to have the same amount of vertices? That's a pretty big limitation.
Third: is there a way to edit how many segments the bridge tool creates across the bridge?

A simpler way to put the question about bridging:

I want to select two sets of one or more polygons, press a button and have a bridge (no matter how many polygons in each set). Can this be done? And same thing about edges.

I'm still learning NVil and maybe I'm just missing something, but so far this is the only modo modeling tool I'm missing. Here's an example:

http://www.luxology.com/training/video.aspx?id=36

It's not a one click solution, but for joining faces, you can select them, and then there's a command "Polygon Shortcut Tools -> Edges Inside Polygon Selection". After executing that you can delete the edges. I've got those things in radial menus, so it's just 2 gestures I need to make.

For me it makes sense, that I can't bridge faces between 2 seperated meshes, because the defining characteristic of the mesh subobject is that they are seperated from one another. The solution might be that bridge and other commands that join stuff would auto-combine the meshes to one new mesh.

As far as I know Nvil is indeed limited to matching numbers of vertices for the bridge command.

There are 2 ways of editing the number of segments. Either you use the visual tool 'bridge holes' in edge mode, where you can set the number of segments. Or you can use the streamline tool Bridge/BridgeHoles/CapHole, which works on edges. You select the first edge, then hover over the second edge and press one of the number keys.
For polygons, bridging is just a command (no interaction like with the edge bridge), so I don't see a way for editing the number of segments that way.

For joining/merging of faces, I set up a streamline tool(Hot-key) for that.
Polygon tool=
On Activated:- Edges Inside Polygon Selection
On Delayed:- Delete

For the bridging of separate mesh within an object. Normally I do merge them first, but I have just checked, and no problem.

I want to select two sets of one or more polygons, press a button and have a bridge (no matter how many polygons in each set). Can this be done? And same thing about edges.

It is possible to improve the edge 'Bridge Hole' tool to bridge between hole with different number of edges. My question is how do you expect the edge flow result. For example, there are 8 possible ways for a bridge between a 3 sided hole and a 4 sided hole. If the result is out of your expectation, will you have a hard time to fix it.

Sure, in some cases you would probably need to do some cleanup, but having an almost good bridge is better than not having any. What I love about NVil is that it's very fast and can be tailored to work basically how you want it to, but the lack of 'limitless' bridge tool kinda breaks that and makes the workflow screech to a halt every time I come to a situation where I need to bridge stuff. It works most of the time in modo, but when it doesn't there's a "twist" setting that you can adjust to try different "solutions".
I mean this as constructive critisism, not just critisism. NVil is on it's way to become the best modeler out there, in my opinion.

It is possible to improve the edge 'Bridge Hole' tool to bridge between hole with different number of edges. My question is how do you expect the edge flow result. For example, there are 8 possible ways for a bridge between a 3 sided hole and a 4 sided hole. If the result is out of your expectation, will you have a hard time to fix it.

And thanks steve and Vaquero. I'll try out your suggestions.

I need some inspirations. Can you provide some screen shots of a bridge built from a 3 sided end and a 6 sided end. One shot for one segment, the second shot for 2 segments and the third shot for 3 segments. I want to see the wire frame. I would be better if you can provide the pure wire frame screen shots as well.

And thanks steve and Vaquero. I'll try out your suggestions.

No need to use the work-around for merging of polygons. IStonia added a tool, he called it "Make NGon"
http://voidworld.cmcproductions.co.uk/index.php/topic,1207.0.html

Sure, here are some examples:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lb72yynjti3btv5/p51_hDM9M-#/

Dropbox might not show them at full resolution, so you might have to download them. Let me know if you need better views.

I need some inspirations. Can you provide some screen shots of a bridge built from a 3 sided end and a 6 sided end. One shot for one segment, the second shot for 2 segments and the third shot for 3 segments. I want to see the wire frame. I would be better if you can provide the pure wire frame screen shots as well.