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What colour is the Move tool cursor?


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Does anyone else's cursor not change to black? My arrow tool remains the default OS theme's arrow cursor.

I'm often getting confused about which selection tool I've got active since my Move tool looks very similar to the Node tool.
And the Node tool looks identical to the Corner tool.

Is the cursor supposed to turn black like the Toolbar's icon? Is my system is being weird?

210408_Designer_f5ca6.png

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9 hours ago, Display said:

My arrow tool remains the default OS theme's arrow cursor.

Same here, I am on Mac OS 10.14.6 so my Move cursor looks like the standard black arrowhead from the Mac OS. Are you running Mac or Windows?

 

9 hours ago, Display said:

And the Node tool looks identical to the Corner tool.

 

Okay, now that you have pointed that out I will not be able to unsee it. Seems like a poor choice on Affinity's part.

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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macOS 11.2 here. My Move Tool cursor remains black, whatever the default OS theme (dark/light/automatic). It changes to various double-headed arrows depending on the available actions.

My Node Tool cursor is white until it can be used. It turns black if it hovers over a node; it acquires a wiggly line when hovering over a path/curve between two nodes; and it acquires a small black circle when dragging node adjustment handles.

My Corner Tool cursor stays white (exactly like the node tool) until hovered over a corner, when it acquires a quarter-circle segment. 

So there is some visual feedback when the tools are usable.

Affinity Photo 2.0.3,  Affinity Designer 2.0.3, Affinity Publisher 2.0.3, Mac OSX 13, 2018 MacBook Pro 15" Intel.

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2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Same here, I am on Mac OS 10.14.6 so my Move cursor looks like the standard black arrowhead from the Mac OS. Are you running Mac or Windows?

Yup, I'm on Windows! I didn't want to mention it as I was curious seeing Mac users experienced :D
I only realised it today when I opened Illustrator (I've migrated and not used it in mooonnths) because their Move/Node tool does change between black and white.

58 minutes ago, h_d said:

My Corner Tool cursor stays white (exactly like the node tool) until hovered over a corner, when it acquires a quarter-circle segment. 

Screen Recording 2021-04-08 at 16.28.58.mov 42.96 MB · 0 downloads

So there is some visual feedback when the tools are usable.

Thanks for the video h_d, I get those additional markers too on the cursor at various locations along a spline/node.
But I've also noticed that some nodes seem to shrink when the Corner tool is active though. So I'll think I have the Node tool active, but it's actually the Corner tool, like this:

210408_corner_tool.png.c847322b80ae9599222b8f459ddce3d9.png


And sometimes I'll want to make a node point into a sharp anchor (Alt+Click) or a smooth point (Click+RightClick (this is a super weird/awkward shortcut to time correctly btw!!)) but if the Corner tool is selected, none of the usual Node tool shortcuts work and it's confusing until I actually look at the toolbar or status bar to see if I've got the right tool active.

I wonder if there's a way on Windows to force a black Move tool cursor? I'd rather not change my OS cursor theme as my OS is dark mode and it'll get lost :<

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Okay, had a go at seeing if I could swap the default OS cursor only when Affinity apps are active.
And it works! It's a Windows only solution since it requires AutoHotkey to run the script.
Obviously not an ideal solution having to open up a third-party program every time you use an Affinity product just to change the cursor, but it's better than nothing!

The script (attachment: Affinity_Black_Cursor.ahk) checks to see if any Affinity apps are active. If active, the OS cursor is set to black (attachment: display_black_arrow.cur).
If any other application is active, the cursor is reset to default.
If all Affinity apps are closed, the script will close itself and exit.
I've also added the afdesign file in case anyone knows how to make cursor files and wants to tweak it. 

display_black_arrow.afdesign

display_black_arrow.cur

Affinity_Black_Cursor.ahk

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