Square bracket brush sizing hotkeys occassionally stop working

[ladlon]

Hi.  Recently, I'm finding that Affinity Photo will suddenly stop recognizing the square bracket 'brush size +/-', after working fine for a long time during that session.

I currently don't see any obvious trigger for the hotkey to stop working, and I'm hoping to spot it in the next few times it occurs.

The keyboard itself continues to function, and all other hotkeys continue to work in AP.  It's solely the brush size hotkeys.

Nothing seems to restore it, other than restarting AP.

Affinity Photo 1.8.2.620  Win7 Pro

[Chris B]

Hey ladlon,

Do they still fail if you switch to another tool that shares the resize shortcut? What tool are you primarily using when this happens? I cannot see why this would just randomly fail. I assume you don't use any other software to manage shortcuts on your machine?

[ladlon]

Hi, Chris.  I believe the brush sizing hotkey fails with other tools, too, but I'll have to verify that.  I would imagine that the regular paint brush is the tool I'm using when this occurs.

Ya, it is very odd, especially considering all other hotkeys (and the overall fu nctioning of the program) continue to work fine.  So far, it's specific to just the brush sizing.

I'm going to continue to experiment and monitor it.  I can usually work in AP for quite a while before it happens, and obviously it's not immediately apparent when it does trigger (but is only spotted the next time I try sizing the brush).  I'll probably try and intentional test run, where I just quickly work with the usual tools, but continually check the brush sizing hotkeys to see if they have been triggered.  Then, I'll at least have a history list which possibly contains the triggering action.

I'm also going to try re-mapping the sizing function, just to see if it is specific to that mapping (square brackets)... just to eliminate that possibility.

I'll keep you posted via this thread.

[Chris B]

Thanks ladlon,

I'm curious to see if there's a recipe to reproduce this.

[Domus]

Encountering the same problem. Had it immediately when working with the brush tool. The bracket keys make you switch between layers (up and down) instead of resizing the brush.

 

Version 1.8.2.620 on Windows 10 Pro

[ladlon]

Weird!  Mine didn't do that.  My square brackets work for a while, and then something eventually causes them to not work (yet all other shortcuts, and the keyboard in general, work).

I tried to 'break' Affinity in my latest session, but so far the glitch didn't occur.  Once I spot it, I'm going to view the Command History, and see what actions (if any) might have triggered it.  Maybe I'll also try stepping up through the history and seeing if the shortcut suddenly comes back again.

Normally the glitch happens regularily (although the amount of time until it occurs seems random), but of course, now that I'm actively trying to spot it, it's suddenly behaving for now.

[Chris B]

8 hours ago, Domus said:

Encountering the same problem. Had it immediately when working with the brush tool. The bracket keys make you switch between layers (up and down) instead of resizing the brush.

 

Version 1.8.2.620 on Windows 10 Pro

What language keyboard are you using? Can you check Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts to see what it is mapped to? 

[Domus]

Hi Chris,

 

It's a Belgian AZERTY keyboard. The bracket keys have always worked fine till yesterday (when I started trying out the latest version more intensively), but in general I'm quite new to the entire suite, so the problem might have been present before. The shortcuts are mapped to "[" and "]". Have never changed those. Now that you point me to it, however, I will change them, since they require me to press the right ALT key simultaneously with the bracket keys, which is rather inconvenient for an often-repeated action.

Many thanks for your assistance.

[Chris B]

Hey Domus,

Yes, we do find that we have to encourage some customers with non QWERTY keyboards to change the shortcut as the square brackets are not as easily accessed. 

[ekoj]

Hi, I have a question regarding this issue.

When I change the keyboard shortcuts, next time I open Affinity Designer, it has automatically been reset to the standard shortcuts.
How to change this?

(I too am using AZERTY)

 

Thanks!

[walt.farrell]

40 minutes ago, ekoj said:

When I change the keyboard shortcuts, next time I open Affinity Designer, it has automatically been reset to the standard shortcuts.
How to change this?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Are you successfully closing the Designer application after making the changes? If it crashes or you have to force quit it then any changes may be lost.

Do you have any "clean up" or ransomware protection applications running that might be deleting changed files?

[mathiasree]

I had this issue; after reading through the forum, I (experimentally) remapped the square bracket hotkey to the lowercase-brackets  { }  on my spanish Latam Keyboard. 

Brushsize adjustment now working without any issues.