Designer: selecting small curves appears to be offset

[Cartoonjosh]

Hi, I've had this problem actually from the start, with Designer for Mac OS, regardless of updates.

If I have a proximity of small curves and I try to select one with the Move Tool, Designer will select a nearby curve but not the one I'm directly selecting. It's as if the selection were offset. The selection works fine with large curves. This can become quite a problem when I have lots of close strokes. Has anyone else had this happen?

Thanks.

 

[David in Яuislip]

I don't have Designer but in Photo & Publisher I don't see this. If I click, not click drag around the shape, on a curve with theMove tool then that gets selected

In the image below the top curve is selected. When I click where the cursor is the selection goes to the centre curve

[Cartoonjosh]

@David in Яuislip yes, that's exactly what I'd expect it to do. Instead, if I were to directly click on the lower shape in your example,  I'd get the second or third upper one selected. Not the one I'm actually clicking and holding. The bizarre thing is that this seems to happen only with small objects (i.e. thin strokes). 

[David in Яuislip]

Well it is bizarre because the image below shows 3 curves, 1px stroke, 1px gap between them and they are selectable with the Move tool

Good luck and hopefully an expert will turn up soon

[Zsolt]

I also have this problem. It's quite frustrating when working with a large amount of strokes. One thing you can do is switching to outline view mode (maybe create a shortcut for this?). Clicking the curve this way will select the right one. It's a workaround, but it might help until the problem is fixed. 

[Lee D]

@Cartoonjosh & @Zsolt it's not something I can reproduce, see the attached screen recording. It's just a blank canvas with three lines drawn on, so nothing special in terms of layer structure. If you setup a similar document do you still get the same behaviour?

[Cartoonjosh]

@Zsolt yes, that's my experience too. Thanks for the tip! It it surely faster than guess-clicking, as I find myself doing sometimes.

[Cartoonjosh]

34 minutes ago, Lee D said:

@Cartoonjosh & @Zsolt it's not something I can reproduce, see the attached screen recording. It's just a blank canvas with three lines drawn on, so nothing special in terms of layer structure. If you setup a similar document do you still get the same behaviour?

 

Thanks for the example. With thicker lines like the ones in your video I can actually select correctly. The problem I describe arises when the strokes, or lines, are thin. As, for example, shading strokes drawn with a fine brush.

[vczf]

@Lee D I have been dealing with this behavior, and it makes Designer extremely annoying to use for drawing.

The selection logic takes only the stated width of the stroke into account, not the visual width when altered by the pressure curve. This means that if you draw strokes with significant pressure sensitivity... for dynamic linework... you will not be able to select visually distinct strokes by clicking on them. You instead have to use the alt-key to select behind, or use the layer panel. This occurs on iPad as well.

With this current behavior, Affinity Designer is nearly unusable for drawing in vector persona with pressure sensitivity. It's more difficult to edit vector strokes than it would be to just work in raster because it is maddeningly difficult to select nearby curves when working in mid-to-complex areas.

Some example videos I've seen seem use an inking process without pressure sensitivity, and then adjust the strokes as needed after the fact. If most people are using a similar process, that may be why this issue has not affected as many people.

220531 selection bug.afdesign

[NotMyFault]

As a limited workaround, you may use one of these options:

• activate snapping and “shoe snapping candidates”
• activate split view with “outline” as second view option. Then use slider to switch dynamically between views.

Both options allow (within limits) to see the wireframe outline of curves, making it easier to hit the correct curve while selecting.

[Cartoonjosh]

@NotMyFault thank you for the tip! The split view actually does work! Of course, as you noted, it's not optimal but it's a good workaround.

I hope Affinity will address this problem. This, and the strange broken artefacts Designer creates when closing vector strokes with pressure (the end tips of strokes are never clean) sadly make this app scarcely suitable for vector freehand drawing.

[Cartoonjosh]

@vczf thank you for the explanation! I hope they fix this soon...

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, Cartoonjosh said:

@vczf thank you for the explanation! I hope they fix this soon...

From what I can see in this thread, it's not yet recognized as a bug, so at this point the Serif team may not know they have something to fix.

 @vczf has provided the first description of the real problem, I think. If I'm right that it's not logged as a problem yet, possibly with that description @Lee D will be able to reproduce it and log it for the Developers.

[Cartoonjosh]

@walt.farrell I actually just realised there's a section for reporting bugs. Maybe it's worth creating a post in there. I could draw a better example than the original one I posted here over a year ago. I'd use more strokes just to be sure the problem reproduces correctly (quite a paradox!  ) for the Affinity Team too, though the problem is in reality so bad it will literally show up with just two strokes, and they don't even have to be that far apart. 

 

[vczf]

17 hours ago, Cartoonjosh said:

@walt.farrell I actually just realised there's a section for reporting bugs. Maybe it's worth creating a post in there. I could draw a better example than the original one I posted here over a year ago. I'd use more strokes just to be sure the problem reproduces correctly (quite a paradox!  ) for the Affinity Team too, though the problem is in reality so bad it will literally show up with just two strokes, and they don't even have to be that far apart.

I made an issue with my example for repro: