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Navigating in input fields with tab and enter


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Hey Affinity team,

this continues to be one of my recurring pains with the entire suite, and as someone who loves navigating menus and input fields with the keyboard it drives me crazy. I've raised the issue some years before, but I can't seem to find it again here on the forum.

The (mis-)behaviour is incredibly annoying if you are used to working with keyboard shortcuts – every other software has a logical sequence for jumping/changing the active field with tabs. As far as the whole Affinity suite is concerned, I only recognise fragmentary connections that do not correspond to any logic, and this is independent of the desktop operating system (Mac/Win). Sometimes the cursor jumps to the next field, sometimes nothing happens, sometimes you get a hint or error tone. The key combination Shift + Tab, which normally jumps to the previous field, does not work either.

Therefore: Please, it would be great if you could clean up the logic in the suite – even if it costs a lot of time, talking about creating tab-enabled forms in Acrobat. 😪.

In addition, tabbed navigation also allows for better accessibility.

I would love to see and improvement on this matter in a future update! 🙂

 

Cheers
Dennis

2023_b.png.6eb47882072cc58253b7219526339b14.png

 

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3 hours ago, MrDoodlezz said:

I've raised the issue some years before, but I can't seem to find it again here on the forum.

Is this it?

 

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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I replied in the original topic. This is years old and is an problem that needs to be fixed... has needed to be fixed.

Surely this is not impossible to fix/implement, I grant you it is probably very boring work to go through every panel's input fields and fix them but Please do it.

Tab.        Go from field to field.

Return/Enter.  Accept the entry and exit the field.

Escape.      Do not accept the entry, just exit the field.

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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19 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Is this it?

 

Haha, oh wow, thanks for looking it up! ❤️

I hadn't even thought about how old it actually is. Sweet, hope you all brought cake – the issue is turning seven this year! 🎂🥳

Jokes aside, that's one year after the first release of Designer I mentioned this problem.
At the same time I can remember some other good suggestions for improvement from the community, which were unfortunately completely ignored.

Instead, more and more new – but mostly uncalled for – features were released without fixing the existing problems first. And if you ask after 6+ years, you don't get an answer – or as in other cases an answer from the moderators with a spiteful/annoyed undertone, in which they deny any responsibility instead of taking the users seriously and referring the issue to the right person.

What’s the point of having a Feature Requests & Suggestions section in the forum if same are getting completely ignored?

That's quite frustrating. 😑

2023_b.png.6eb47882072cc58253b7219526339b14.png

 

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3 hours ago, MrDoodlezz said:

Also, why the heck was my old thread closed and moved to solved when the problem clearly hasn't been touched in any way?

I can see the thread was moved in 2016, periodically we 'clean up' the forums by moving old bug reports into a different section from the current reports, as to not confuse issues/versions etc.

It appears as though this happened due to an automated process, whereby the original issue you reported was logged with our development team (lets call this 'Log A'), then later down the line this was merged into 'Log B', which covered the issue you had reported and a few other similar UI issues.

This meant that the original log (Log A) was closed internally, as a duplicated report. The system recognised your 'Log A' had been closed and therefore the Forum thread was moved to the 'resolved' section.

I can confirm however this is still an active issue with our development team, (within the aforementioned 'Log B') and I'm in the process of updating this log with the most up-to-date information now.

I hope this clears things up :)

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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1 hour ago, Dan C said:

I can see the thread was moved in 2016, periodically we 'clean up' the forums by moving old bug reports into a different section from the current reports, as to not confuse issues/versions etc.

It appears as though this happened due to an automated process, whereby the original issue you reported was logged with our development team (lets call this 'Log A'), then later down the line this was merged into 'Log B', which covered the issue you had reported and a few other similar UI issues.

This meant that the original log (Log A) was closed internally, as a duplicated report. The system recognised your 'Log A' had been closed and therefore the Forum thread was moved to the 'resolved' section.

I can confirm however this is still an active issue with our development team, (within the aforementioned 'Log B') and I'm in the process of updating this log with the most up-to-date information now.

I hope this clears things up :)

Hey @Dan C,

thanks for your reply and the detailed explanation on this issue. I don't know if it's too much to ask, but such a hint would be great as the last message
before a thread is automatically merged, wouldn't it? »Hey X, this issue has been relocated with other similar issues within a new (internal) thread and it
will be worked on further.« That's why we use tags, so that we can easily and quickly find all the threads that belong together, right?

By silently moving/merging and closing a thread, users are just wondering why the problem hasn't been solved and it feels a bit like communicating into the void.

But of course it is nice to read that the problem is not going unheard and is being worked on.
Let's hope that at some point (sooner rather than later) there will be a solution to it. 🙂

Happy Weekend!
Dennis

2023_b.png.6eb47882072cc58253b7219526339b14.png

 

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  • 9 months later...

It appears that Affinity v2 suite of products still has this issue. 

With keyboard accessibility off - I can tab through input fields but not switches. With keyboard accessibilty on, I can tab through switches but not input fields. I know this used to work in an older version of Affinity photo 1 as I used it all the time. I was really hoping this would be resolved in Affinity Photo v2, but apparently not. Attached are two small videos to demonstrate the issue. 

First little movie demonstrates with keyboard accessibility off:

ooc-screenshot 1.mov

First little movie demonstrates with keyboard accessibility on:

ooc-screenshot.mov

Apologies, I could not figure out how to embed the clips in the post. 

Edited by outofcontrol
Correct vague text.
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  • 3 months later...

@Dan C, what’s the status on this issue?

I'm sorry, we're now into V2, but keyboard navigation in the Affinity desktop apps isn't just still a massive, massive pain in the butt, but completely impossible. You've already mentioned that the development team considers this an active issue – is that still the case? And if not: Why was it deprioritised? Is there a log that contains the current state of affairs on this issue?

Again, it's super frustrating to navigate the desktop apps with Tab, as you're used to doing with virtually any other app out there.

2023_b.png.6eb47882072cc58253b7219526339b14.png

 

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On 2/21/2023 at 12:51 PM, Mr. Doodlezz said:

You've already mentioned that the development team considers this an active issue – is that still the case?

I can confirm that this issue is still something our developers are keen to improve in all Affinity apps. Unfortunately I can’t give you an ETA for when these changes will be available but please keep an eye on the beta forums as when it’s added it will be announced there first, available for testing and feedback.

Our apologies for any inconveniences caused in the meantime.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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  • 9 months later...

Hi Affinity Team,

I would like to use the Elgato Stream Deck with the multi-action hotkeys it offers. This allows me to assign the most important functions of my workflow to one key and thus speed up the workflow.

However, this fails because a selected menu has no focus at all, so I can't enter any values in the input menus using the keyboard (as descriped in this thread before)

Example: In Live Unsharp Mask, the default values (Radius 0px, Factor 0.5, Threshold 0%) make little sense. I would therefore like to set the focus on the Radius input field. This is not possible without using the mouse (IMHO). Strangely enough, I can enter a value for the opacity using the numeric keyboard. However, I cannot move the focus from there to the other input fields.
In my opinion, it would therefore be helpful if these functions had a defined start focus when called, so that values can be inserted automatically with defined keyboard sequences.

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3 minutes ago, Rober said:

Hi Affinity Team,

I would like to use the Elgato Stream Deck with the multi-action hotkeys it offers. This allows me to assign the most important functions of my workflow to one key and thus speed up the workflow.

However, this fails because a selected menu has no focus at all, so I can't enter any values in the input menus using the keyboard (as descriped in this thread before)

Example: In Live Unsharp Mask, the default values (Radius 0px, Factor 0.5, Threshold 0%) make little sense. I would therefore like to set the focus on the Radius input field. This is not possible without using the mouse (IMHO). Strangely enough, I can enter a value for the opacity using the numeric keyboard. However, I cannot move the focus from there to the other input fields.
In my opinion, it would therefore be helpful if these functions had a defined start focus when called, so that values can be inserted automatically with defined keyboard sequences.

Despite announcements of improvements months ago, there has been little to no change regarding navigation with keys like tab and enter/return or other means in a very, very long time.
I'm not sure what the cause is, but I guess fixing persistent issues that don't break functionality for most users has been ranked lower repeatedly in favour of implementing new features.

2023_b.png.6eb47882072cc58253b7219526339b14.png

 

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1 hour ago, Mr. Doodlezz said:

Despite announcements of improvements months ago, there has been little to no change regarding navigation with keys like tab and enter/return or other means in a very, very long time.
I'm not sure what the cause is, but I guess fixing persistent issues that don't break functionality for most users has been ranked lower repeatedly in favour of implementing new features.

For me that's basically ok - considering the price of the app. The biggest effort is certainly not the development, but the testing and the search for other dependencies. That makes it expensive. Today's users usually only know how to use a mouse and can't imagine anything else. What a pity.
But: in this case, that would certainly be a USP that puts it above other apps.
JM2C

PS: another option would be to create a macro. But macros cannot be assigned key combinations that would be necessary for control via Stream Desk, right?

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Regarding the Stream Deck, I'm not familiar with its specifics, hopefully someone else can answer that question.

Almost any other applications I use or have used have implemented keyboard navigation quite effectively. I’m so used to it by now, I’d almost already expect to work properly. (Well, even more so with a V2 release, tbh.)

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On Mac, it slightly helps to activate the options in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Keyboard, i.e. where it says "Change the way Tab moves focus" etc.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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