While learning to use hammer, their have been frustrating facters in to navigating and manipulating the environment.

Even though there are many great tutorials, videos. Some basic information that would have been useful to know (when starting) has been overlooked. Once you know about these options, it makes mapping in hammer so much easy! So thought I would mention them.

Coming from someone who new nothing about the hammer editor 2 months ago. I would have found this useful then.

When I first loaded hammer I noticed the screen was split into the four windows. First thing I wanted to know was how could I make this full screen without having to drag the cross bar in the middle manually everytime. (see 1)

Navigating the 3D window was difficult and clumsy with keys. Holding the space bar allowed better but still not as good as it could be. Then I found out about the following, it made mapping in hammer so much more 'enjoyable' (see 2).

1) Four Views into One.
On any selected view, press 'shift z' to make this view full screen. Then press 'shift z' again to return to the four window view.

2) Navigating the 3D window:
While the '3D' window is selected, press the 'z' key. This changes how you move around in the 3D window.

It allows you to move around the map using the 'wsad' keys and 'mouse' as you would move around any FPS game.

This is so much more natural (and quicker) than trying to using other movement methods. Makes it easier to apply textures, selecting brushes, entities and viewing your map.

Hope someone else finds this useful. I know I would have.

You can also move freely around the editor when holding the space bar, which i use as i find it easiest.