From BlenderWiki

WIP The aim of this page is to provide a general overview over functionality in blender to reduce redundance in wikipages and circumvent the usage of

"to perfom action hit the shortcut, perform the action with the mouse or the keyboard on your selected axes and confirm with enter lmb"

instead of

"to perform action hit the shortcut and do as explained here (link)"

Introduction

Blender is a collection of a lot of very diverse functions for very diverse purposes. However some standards were used in the creation of Blender so that certain general functions remain the same across all editors. These are listed here and do work for all editors if the specific context allows it. Naturally they are some of the most common and most used shortcuts in Blender.

Layout

Blenders layout can be confusing and daunting at first but it was designed so that certain areas share functionality across all editors.

Navigation

The Navigation is covered in the Navigation in the 3D view because it is the most complex form of Navigation used in Blender. That doesn't mean that those functions are 3D exclusive! If you want to, you can navigate any other menu or header with the functions that make sense in the context (you can't zoom in on a header, but you can in the compositor).

Shortcuts

In general shortcuts pressed will cause a function to be executed in the editor your cursor is currently in:

Selection

• LMB will select functions, objects in less complex editors, listitems or variables in panels.

• RMB will select the object or element under your cursor (or deselect if the object is already selected) when in an editor or open a contextmenu.

• A will select all objects (or deselect if all objects are selected) in the current editor.
• L (or ⇧ ShiftL in 3D View) will select all elements that are in some way linked to your selection, i.e. belonging to or sharing a datablock.
• CtrlI inverts your current selection.

• B will enable the borderselect mode, which will enable you to draw a box that will either select, if drawn with the LMB , or deselect, if drawn with the MMB , all objects within that box.
• C will enable circle select mode which will enable you to either select(LMB ) or deselect(MMB ) objects inside a circle that is variable in size with the mousewheel Wheel . This can be used continously like a brush that "paints" selection into the editor.

• ⇧ Shift in combination with the keys above will enable you to select multiple objects at a time. If you press and hold it before using any of the above, it will add the selected objects to your current selection.

Functionality

• ↵ Enter or LMB will confirm a previously initiated function.
• Esc or RMB will abort a previously initiated function.

Manipulation

Even though Blender has a variety of different objects that are manipulated, they can still be treated just as objects. As such there are common manipulation functions:

• G will grab the selection so it is moveable in the current editor.
• R will rotate the selection in the current editor.
• S will scale the selection so it is moveable in the current editor.
• ⇧ ShiftA add opens a menu from which an new object to add is selectable.
• Del will delete the selection.

Axis Locking

A lot of functions in Blender are lockable to axes. Since this is mostly used in the 3D View please read this manual page about it. As other navigational functions this isn't limited to the 3D view either.