What do you mean “active”?
By the way, thanks everyone for their help!!
so when you have done your second click with the DIO line tool the trowel tool activates.
You’ll notice in the status bar that before you click with the trowel, shift is a modifier for shift on face and shift on edge.
After you click with the trowel, shift is to move a loop.
I think that it’s not that pressing shift cancels the trowel tool, it’s that you are pressing another key (a letter) in combination with shift.
Pressing only shift when the trowel tool is active should just activate the modifier behaviour.
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Aha, and that’s exactly what it did too!!
So the x-ray thing is normal, shift is a helpful modifier and I need to just scroll and orbit when using the trowel, and I should pay more attention to the status bar.
I think that addresses all my current questions.