AD & AF 1.9.2. Problems with comma and period separator

[luisrenes]

Hello. Help needed.
 
If

I copy a size value with a decimal comma from an object
- e.g. 100,5 px -

Then

I select another object

Then

I paste the comma value I copied in the 'Transform' panel of this new object (in order to apply the same size value to that object)

Then

AD (and AF) changes the decimal comma separator into a decimal point separator after pasting it
- e.g. 100.5 px -

And

When I hit enter the decimal point separator disappears and AD applies a completely wrong value without separator
- e.g. 1005 px - (What!?)

---

100,5 px (copied)
100.5 px (pasted-then-enter)
1005 px (result)

---

Language settings *English* Region *Spain*
Number separators: Grouping "." (dot) Decimal "," (comma)
AD & AF 1.9.2
MacBook Pro 2018. macOS Big Sur V11.2.3

---

Please advise, this is very time consuming. Thanks

[Old Bruce]

I am grasping at straws here but have you the same Language set for the the Affinity Applications and the Operating system? Are you using an American English Keyboard?

Plus it appears that you have two languages set in your OS. Going to guess English and then Spanish. To the best of my knowledge Anglo countries use the dot/period/stop as the decimal point and the comma as the thousands separator.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, luisrenes said:

Please advise

This is an already known and logged bug that affects some localizations.
E.g. my customized combination of English and German (Swiss) doesn't seem to be affected, but that's on El Capitan. Don't know if it's a Big Sur thing only.

Hopefully it will be fixed in the next update.

53 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

two languages set in your OS. Going to guess English and then Spanish. To the best of my knowledge Anglo countries use the dot/period/stop as the decimal point and the comma as the thousands separator.

These things have always been a source of pain in the ass, ever since the classic Mac OS days.
E.g. FileMaker 16 cannot deal with the standard Swiss number separators (1'000'000.00) to this day. I had to change the global decimal separator to comma to make certain FM calculations work…

[luisrenes]

Affinity Apps language is set to *Default*,
macOS "Language & Region" decimal separator is set to *comma*
macOS "Language & Region" preferred language is set to *English (UK)* (primary)

---

Preferred language and Number separator can be defined separately in System Preferences ("Language & Region"), as shown above. There's no issue in using a non-English decimal *comma* separator with *English* as preferred language.

Note: we do not have any problems *typing* decimal comma separated values in AF's Transform panel. That's is OK, it works, it's the expected behaviour since our operating system decimal separator is set to *comma*. So, when we hit the separator key on our numeric keypads it types a comma, and it works with the Affinity Apps when typing a value. It's the "copy and paste" problem that I mentioned above which is slowing us down. Every time I copy a comma-separated value and I paste it, it suddenly changes into a dot-separated value, and when I hit enter the separator disappears completely.

Somehow Affinity apps ignore or override the macOS "Language & Region" settings when copying & pasting a comma separated decimal value. It's not a value typing issue, it's a value pasting issue.

Since our region is Spain (i.e. *comma* decimal separator), it would be counterproductive to change our "Language & Region" settings to *dot* decimal separator just to avoid this odd behaviour in one app. Besides, this did not happen with AD 1.8.6; we have a AD 1.8.6 version installed in another laptop - with exactly the same settings - and it shows no "copy&paste" comma-separated problems at all. Strange...

Edited April 7, 2021 by luisrenes

[luisrenes]

In other words...

When I copy *100( , )5 px* I expect to paste exactly *100( , )5 px*, not *100( . )5 px*, and much less get *1005 px*

If I copy a comma-separated value I expect to paste a comma-separated value, not a dot-separated value that suddenly changes into a non-decimal-separated value at all.

If there's no problem typing comma-separated values in AD, why it does not work when pasting them?

Edited April 7, 2021 by luisrenes

[loukash]

45 minutes ago, luisrenes said:

Somehow Affinity apps ignore or override the macOS "Language & Region" settings

They do indeed.
Because even though I have comma as the default decimal separator, my Affinity wants dot.

47 minutes ago, luisrenes said:

Affinity Apps language is set to *Default*,

Me: English US

47 minutes ago, luisrenes said:

macOS "Language & Region" decimal separator is set to *comma*

Same here.
However, for Currency I keep the standard Swiss ' . apostrophe/dot combo. (is this the clue?)

49 minutes ago, luisrenes said:

macOS "Language & Region" preferred language is set to *English (UK)* (primary)

English (English) here, with Region: Switzerland (Custom). Some apps read it then as "English (Switzerland)". Generally it's mostly corresponding with US English, rather than UK English. Which is OK by me, I prefer the slightly shorter US spelling variants…

On El Capitan, it is also still possible to set the Format Language separately. So I'm using German. Not available on newer MacOS anymore. (Which sucks.)

As noted, my Affinity apps are not affected by this bug. So perhaps you may want to try to set it up partially according to my example, at least as far as the English variants is concerned, if it makes a difference.

[luisrenes]

9 hours ago, luisrenes said:

Besides, this did not happen with AD 1.8.6; we have a AD 1.8.6 version installed in another laptop - with exactly the same settings - and it shows no "copy&paste" comma-separated problems at all

I see. The difference between AD 1.9.2 and AD 1.8.6 --- both with the same macOS settings: Language *English* and Decimal separator "," (comma), and AD Language set to *Default* --- is that:

> in version AD 1.8.6 (previous)
> when I paste a comma-separated value
> AD changes it to a dot-separated value, but
> when I hit enter
> it changes back again to a comma-separated value and it works.

AD 1.8.6

100,5 px (comma copied)
100.5 px (pasted dot)
100,5 px (enter key) It works!

AD 1.9.2

100,5 px (comma copied)
100.5 px (pasted dot)
1005 px (enter key) Wrong value, no separator at all

---

8 hours ago, loukash said:

Me: English US

Thank you.

It's the AD Language set to *Default* which seems to be the problem in AD 1.9.2. I have selected English US as the Affinity Apps preferred language (AD Preferences/General/Language).
Both apps keep ignoring my macOS settings for Decimal separator "," (comma), but now they only work with dot-separated values, which is fine with me as long as i can avoid that strange "copy&paste" comma-separated value related issue.

I still think it's a bug, not a settings problem. The apps should paste the same value that it was copied, without changing its format.

Edited April 8, 2021 by luisrenes

[Sean P]

Hi luisrenes,

I can confirm this is a known issue, and not a problem with your settings (though I'm glad you're able to work around it). It is with development to be fixed, though I will get your comments passed on.

Thanks for letting us know.

[Patrick Connor]

Thanks for your help with this bug. We have now resolved the problem and will make the fix available in the next release of Affinity Designer on your platform.

[Artcraft]

On 5/25/2021 at 7:14 PM, Patrick Connor said:

Thanks for your help with this bug. We have now resolved the problem and will make the fix available in the next release of Affinity Designer on your platform.

When will this bug be solved? Has been over a year and it's still a problem. This drives me crazy, everytime I click on 4,2mm it transforms it into 42mm, OS and AD are both set to english US.

[Patrick Connor]

sorry, @Artcraft although many of the consequences of the change were fixed in 1.10 there are still some fields that are not acting correctly in 1.10.5. I understand that it may still be a problem in our latest internal builds. Can you confirm which OS you are on and whether this only happens when you press the decimal on the NumPad at the right of the keyboard or when you use the normal comma also?

(myref: APL-1346)

[Artcraft]

On 7/22/2022 at 5:05 PM, Patrick Connor said:

sorry, @Artcraft although many of the consequences of the change were fixed in 1.10 there are still some fields that are not acting correctly in 1.10.5. I understand that it may still be a problem in our latest internal builds. Can you confirm which OS you are on and whether this only happens when you press the decimal on the NumPad at the right of the keyboard or when you use the normal comma also?

(myref: APL-1346)

Sorry for the late reply...windows 10, only happens when pressing comma , on my keyboard, NumPad has period only, not decimal (European decimal). Everything with period works, everything with comma doesn't. 

[MmmMaarten]

@Artcraft Although this is more like a feature request if we're talking about the same thing, I agree; I bump into this a lot too.

When hitting the `numpad .` key I would expect the decimal seperator to be used inside numeric text fields, just like in other software (wether that's a dot or a comma in the selected locale/decimal settings). The way it is now, at least on Windows, is very inconvenient as we cannot use the `numpad .`-key to use a comma as seperator as it's hard coded to type a dot, not a comma when needed to.

Would be very welcome if Serif could make this `numpad .`-key inside numeric value fields use the appropriate decimal symbol.