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No eyedropper indicator when holding alt


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I know that, if you alt + click when you have the brush selected, you color pick.

I would like to see some kind of preview you, like what the color picker usually does. You know, with the zoom-in thing and the special eye-dropper icon to help you pick the exact color you want. 

Right now, when I hold alt, it has no visual indicator. 

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31 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi HuniSenpai,
You have to press and hold alt and click-drag the cursor/mouse a little bit for it to appear.

I think this should start happening as soon as you hit alt. It should stop happening as soon as you let go of alt. This is how Photoshop did it, and they did it for a reason.

The large circle of the brush makes it hard to aim at what you're trying to color pick. This is especially prevalent in AP, where there's no reticle inside of the brush circle. So, if you want to quickly grab a color (without clicking and dragging), you have to try to aim the circle and try to make the center of it approximately line up with the thing you're trying to pick. 

My point is that this color picker preview should show up as soon as you start holding alt. Or, at the very least, the brush circle should change to a pointer (i.e. an eyedropper icon) to make it easier to aim.

I also think this is important for the visual language of the program. As it is, there's no visual indication of what it's doing as soon as you press alt, and it just feels wrong. You need to click and drag before you get that visual indication, which takes longer. These little inconveniences add up and make the program feel less comfortable.

(To be clear, AP still feels more comfortable and more streamlined than Photoshop in my opinion :) , this is just one of my few gripes with AP)

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2 hours ago, HuniSenpai said:

The large circle of the brush makes it hard to aim at what you're trying to color pick. This is especially prevalent in AP, where there's no reticle inside of the brush circle. So, if you want to quickly grab a color (without clicking and dragging), you have to try to aim the circle and try to make the center of it approximately line up with the thing you're trying to pick. 

You don't have to drag very much; about a pixel will do it, and you then get the nice magnifying glass showing you the exploded pixel view to let you aim accurately.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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10 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You don't have to drag very much; about a pixel will do it, and you then get the nice magnifying glass showing you the exploded pixel view to let you aim accurately.

Yes, but is there a point to having it work this way? Why not have the simple act of holding alt be the activator for this, rather than clicking and dragging? I imagine it would be a relatively simple change in the code. 

It took me months of using the program to realize that you needed to click and drag to pull up this indicator and magnifying glass. Before I realized this, I just assumed that there wasn't any indicator. The system would be a lot more intuitive if a simple button press and hold activated it. I really can't understand why it's implemented in this way. 

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1 minute ago, HuniSenpai said:

I really can't understand why it's implemented in this way.

Time spent on this means other things don't get fixed. Priorities are set according to what Affinity/Serif deems most important.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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4 minutes ago, HuniSenpai said:

It took me months of using the program to realize that you needed to click and drag to pull up this indicator and magnifying glass. Before I realized this, I just assumed that there wasn't any indicator.

The Status Bar at the bottom of the screen always shows the modifiers that are valid for the current tool. That's one thing that is consistent across the Affinity suite, and that all users should learn early. For the Paint Brush Tool it says "Drag+Alt to use color picker", so the information is there for anyone to see. Though I would argue that it's incorrect, and should say "Alt+Drag", because as it's worded you get a brush stroke before you get the color picker.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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5 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Time spent on this means other things don't get fixed. Priorities are set according to what Affinity/Serif deems most important.

I legitimately believe that this kind of change would take maybe 10 to 20 minutes. Now, to be fair, I have never taken on a project of this size before, and I recognize that it may be more difficult than I am assuming. I've done some programming before (Java) with GUI and I know that something seemingly simple can be quite time consuming. However, if it's not too difficult for the devs, I don't see why they can't.

They are making small tweaks in the latest beta version anyways. Things like missing tooltips, improved embedded document bounding boxes, fixed "8/1s" exposure time string, etc. 

What i'm saying doesn't need to be changed urgently -- it's alright if it takes a year or two. But I hope that it makes it into a list somewhere of small changes that the AP team will eventually get to after the big problems have been worked out. To be honest, it sounds to me like this tweak will not be taken note of and will never be made. Do you guys have a list somewhere of small tweaks? Unless you can explain why this tweak should not be made, I don't see why it can't make it on to that list.

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23 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

The Status Bar at the bottom of the screen always shows the modifiers that are valid for the current tool. That's one thing that is consistent across the Affinity suite, and that all users should learn early. For the Paint Brush Tool it says "Drag+Alt to use color picker", so the information is there for anyone to see. Though I would argue that it's incorrect, and should say "Alt+Drag", because as it's worded you get a brush stroke before you get the color picker.

Ah, got it. I missed that part of the program. Thank you for letting me know.

Still, I've gotta ask: why on earth is it alt + drag and not just alt? It would make sense if maybe zooming in AP used alt instead of crl, but it doesn't. It makes no sense and the dragging part of the process is an unnecessary step.

And, in fact, this extra step can be to the program's detriment, because as soon as I let go, it color picks. What if I decide I don't want to color pick after all? What if I accidentally got into this color picking mode? What if, after initiating this picker, I realize I should probably zoom out and look at another area of my photo? I guess I just need to let go and accept that my foreground color is going to change. I know I will be color picking again, but this just feels clunky. This is compared to if alt merely brought up this indicator. If I decide I don't want to color pick, I release alt. If I want to go through with it, I aim it and click. Who knows, maybe I just want to view my image on a pixel level real quick.

As I said in my other response, I don't expect this change to be made immediately. But, if you have a list of small tweaks, I really think this should be added to it. The behavior of the color picker for the brush tool really needs improvement in my opinion. Even if this small tweak is made years down the line, I will be happy.

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13 minutes ago, fde101 said:

So... it is alt+drag then.  In your case alt+click, but the click is being translated into a short drag...

You need to alt + drag to activate the eyedropper zoom-in feature and the eyedropper pointer. My entire point for this post was that alt should bring up the zoom feature and the eyedropper cursor, not alt + drag. This is how Photoshop does it and it is much faster and feels better when you give it a try. 

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I agree with the topic starter. Alt + Click with the visible cursor change would be the huge deal especially for the digital artists. Because of the workflow when you select existing colors from the image to paint at the coloring stage. And they do this operation many times per minute. The expected behavior like in other apps for digital drawing would be a big improvement in terms of usability.

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On 2/5/2020 at 7:55 PM, MEB said:

Hi HuniSenpai,
You have to press and hold alt and click-drag the cursor/mouse a little bit for it to appear.

The drag aspect is however not the problem. The problem is when you're only holding down alt. You can still colour pick by just tapping with your pen or mouse, but Affinity doesn't actually inform you that the picker is active, thus creating a disconnect between the program and the user. 

I don't see why we would have to choose between having no colour picker icon when immediately pressing alt and the alt+drag functionality currently in place. Just change the mouse/pen icon to a traditional colour picker when holding down alt and change to the magnifying glass when alt+dragging on the screen. It is one simple icon change and no other change to how colour picking functions. Problem solved!

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/5/2020 at 10:57 PM, walt.farrell said:

The Status Bar at the bottom of the screen always shows the modifiers that are valid for the current tool. That's one thing that is consistent across the Affinity suite, and that all users should learn early. For the Paint Brush Tool it says "Drag+Alt to use color picker", so the information is there for anyone to see. Though I would argue that it's incorrect, and should say "Alt+Drag", because as it's worded you get a brush stroke before you get the color picker.

I agree, should be Alt+Drag.

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