By golly, this merging stuff is fun. Cubes are wonderful things to punch around on -- some of them do not reproduce properly. I suppose those are the situations where a finer grid is needed.
I don't quite understand; what do you mean by them not reproducing properly? What operation are you doing with the cube, a duplication, or...?
However, i do seem to have a small quirk in the mouse. When i left click drag, i first get a light gray trail following the pointer, then after an inch or two the object may slide parallel to the drag; Or, a dashed line may jump put and connect from the center of the object to my pointer; then i can rotate the object by dragging the pointer in a circle. But this latter reaction is not reliable.
Well, this is actually a normal mouse function; my mouse does it too.
Try this: left click and drag for only a short distance (say, a centimeter), then release your left mouse button. Make sure that the line you drag is straight, not curvy. The cube should now follow your mouse around. To produce the rotation effect, left click and drag in a smallish semi-circular "C" shape--you should now be able to rotate the cube at will. The size of your lines doesn't really matter; shape is what counts. So do these mouse movements work for you now...? If so, everything is operating as it should. If not, we'll give it another shot.
The left click drag problem is probably related to my 'panning' problem:
When i use shift alt & left click drag, my camera does not pan; i simply drag the whole scene along with my mouse – acting like a simple left clik dragging operation.
Now, does the cube move in relation to the grid when you do the shift alt left click drag? If the cube does move in relation to the grid, then there is a problem. However, if the cube and the grid move in unison together, then everything is operating properly. What you're doing is actually not the same as a left click drag operation though, as I'll explain in a moment here.
And i cannot get the V – drag scaler to work; but my mouse wheel does scaling very well.
The V-drag might be a bit tricky; I would recommend that you try a sharp angle--an "L" just will not do (you'll get rotation instead of scaling), try a forty-five degree angle between the legs of the V. Maybe also try making the V about an inch large, until you get the hang of it and can make smaller quicker ones. Now when you scroll your mouse wheel, does only the cube grow larger, or does the grid grow larger too? Because in scaling, only the cube should grow.
I do not know if this problem is related to having my word processor stuck in GK language when i opened up this morning. Had to find the language bar to get that sorted out. And then it took a while to take hold.
lol, that happens to me but in Russian. It happened on Uru once; I was so embarrassed about having to quit without any explanation. Fortunately I don't believe it would affect Blender as long as you were in English mode when you started the program up.
Now, one last thing--you're getting the scene view commands and the object movement commands mixed up, which isn't surprising at all since the cube doesn't have any reference points nearby except the grid. It's hard to figure out what's happening that way. Next time we'll make a plane to go with the grid--that will hopefully provide a better reference point. For now, let me try to explain the difference between scene view commands and object movement commands with an example.
Imagine your kitchen table, bare except for a single salt shaker. You're sitting in a chair staring at your salt shaker. Now lean forward until your eyes are reaaally close to the salt shaker. This is the equivalent of scrolling your mouse wheel and zooming--in Blender, you would be changing your view of the cube to make the cube look closer or further away. Note that this is not the same thing as V scaling. If you were V scaling, you would be leaned back in your chair in an ordinary position and the saltshaker would be growing to cover up the tabletop or shrinking down to the size of a carelessly spilled grain of salt on the wood (or plastic, or whatever). The salt shaker would be actually growing and shrinking instead of merely appearing to grow and shrink because you were looking at it from nearer or further away as would be the case for zooming.
It is the same thing with the shift alt left click drag vs. the plain left click drag; in the former case, you are doing the equivalent of moving your chair from side to side to pan--of course the salt shaker never moved from its place, you did. Likewise, in Blender the cube doesn't actually move when you shift alt left click drag; rather your point of view of the cube is moving. Doing a left click drag is like reaching out with your hand to slide the salt shaker to different places on the table while your chair remains stationary. In this case, the salt shaker and Blender cube would actually be moving, not just appearing to move because your chair and point of view were moving. The grid is like the table top, and if the cube moves or changes size in relation to the grid, then it is actually moving. But if the cube and the grid slide or grow/shrink together as a unit, then your point of view is moving--the cube is not. See what I'm getting at? If not, things will be cleared up in the next lesson with the plane. (I haven't gotten around to writing that one yet, but I will!)
). So pappou, if your problem isn't fixed after you've gone through my last post, we'll try Jojon's suggestion and try to walk you through it with some screenshots. 