How do I prevent the spurious square-with-number on almost every click?

Question

When I click to try to select an object, half the time I get a spurious square with a number in it. It isn't selected, so I have to click again to select it, then hit delete.

Incredibly frustrating.

How do I turn that off?

Answer 1

Disable "File" -> "Preferences", tab "Editor", setting "Create Node on Background Click".

By the way, this setting is disabled by default.

Comments

Thank you!

I am having a hard time understanding why someone would even want this feature. It seems to me that the default is backwards.

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You might have misread what I wrote above. The default behavior is the behavior you want, i.e. when you click on empty space, nothing happens (because "Create Node on Background Click" is disabled by default).