Affinity Photo 1.10.1: Crop tool sometimes open in Straighten mode?

[thomasp]

I regularly have to crop a whole batch of images manually, and I've had this issue for many versions now and am unsure if it's user error or a bug:

• Image is opened in Affinity Photo, usually by 'Open with' context menu from an image viewer (XNview in my case) or by dragging in from Finder - I usually have between 20 and 50 images open at the same time
• Make an image the active document
• Pick the Crop tool and proceed to crop the image

Every so often the crop tool will not open up in crop mode but right away in straighten mode with the ruler icon visible. This happens to me perhaps once in about 30+ images (across sessions and across restarts of application or OS).

I don't seem to do anything different to toggle this behaviour and I can't find a hotkey assignment or the like that might be triggering this.

OS is Mojave.

 

[qaman333]

The same happens sporadically to me while having only one image open ( I rarely open more than one image at the same time) (AP 1.10.1, macMini  10.13.6). My usual custom setting is a crop ratio 1:1.

[Chris B]

I've tried opening a group of 30+ images a number of times and not once could I reproduce this.

Are you absolutely sure you aren't accidentally hitting the Straighten button when clicking between all the opened images? There's barely any space between the Straighten button and the document tab.

Is there any chance you could provide a screen recording at all?

[thomasp]

10 hours ago, Chris B said:

Are you absolutely sure you aren't accidentally hitting the Straighten button when clicking between all the opened images? There's barely any space between the Straighten button and the document tab.

Is there any chance you could provide a screen recording at all?

I'm absolutely certain that I never accidentally touch the Straighten button in the context bar (or whatever it may be called officially )

 

I'll look into doing a screen recording but to demonstrate let me quickly post my screen layout when using AP:

 

Once the image has been loaded and is the active document all I do is to click on the crop icon in the toolbox, then set my crop as desired by dragging over the image and finally press the Enter key to confirm. Next step is to press CMD+S followed by CMD+W to overwrite the original file with the cropped version and close it right afterwards. I never even get remotely near the context bar or even the menu bar for that matter.

Unless there's some shortcut I'm triggering that I don't know about it can't be that. I've been through the preferences and I don't think there is one for Straighten at all?

 

[thomasp]

Oh, one other thing - my input device when performing these actions is a Wacom tablet.

I recall that was the source of another strange behaviour in AP with the macro panel a while back.

[carl123]

6 hours ago, thomasp said:

Unless there's some shortcut I'm triggering that I don't know about

The CTRL key activates "Straightening mode"

[thomasp]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

The CTRL key activates "Straightening mode"

Thanks! - it's the CMD (Command) key on my setup however.

But at any rate it can't be that - Straighten only activates for as long as I keep pressing CMD. The issue however is that sometimes the crop tool behaves as if the 'Straighten' button in the context bar had been pressed.

[carl123]

On Windows, depending on your settings, you can activate CTRL lock where the control key will be active without the need to keep it pressed

I have no idea if something like that is possible for the CMD key on a mac

If MACs have a pop-up keyboard display option, then the next time it happens try activating that and see if it shows the CMD key is active

[Chris B]

10 hours ago, thomasp said:

Well it looks like you're in Separated Mode so you're document window might not be near the context toolbar. When not in Separated Mode, there's such a small space between them I figured it was worth a shot and to ask if this might be the case.