In Maya you can easily move an object in a specific plane like xy, xz and yz by interfacing with the widget. See picture:
In Blender, what I can see so far, to do this you need to place the camera exactly perpendicular to the plane you wish to move in (use the numkeys). This is usually OK but sometimes I feel the need to be able to do it just from a normal perspective view. But how?
Please help 
