Frame and Art Text Layers Can't be Positioned Between Picture Frames in the Layers Panel

[Hangman]

Apologies if this has already been reported...

You can't currently position Frame and Art Text layers between adjacent Picture Frames in the Layers panel, the converse however is not true, i.e., you can position Picture Frames between adjacent Frame and Art Text Layers.

[walt.farrell]

You're trying to drop it on the layer thumbnail, which has a specific meaning. You need to drop it over the layer name field, so move your mouse to the right so you're in the proper drop zone. Then watch the blue highlighting very carefully.

[Hangman]

Hi @walt.farrell, that's not what is happening, I'm actually trying to move the text layer below the Picture Frame layer so you see the horizontal blue line between the two Picture Frame Layers and you simply can't do it, on macOS at least, watch where I do the reverse and drag a Picture Frame layer between two adjacent Text Layers, I'm again dragging over and then above the thumbnail and then you correctly do see the horizontal blue line allowing you to drop the Picture Frame between the two Text Layers...

It makes no difference whether you drag the Text Layer over the thumbnail or the field name, the horizontal blue line simply never appears...

[walt.farrell]

When I tried it on Windows before responding it worked as I stated (which is the way it's always worked, as far as I know).

It would help to see a recording where you're trying to drop it in the right place, so we can confirm. Or maybe someone with a Mac will have an answer.

[Hangman]

Hi @walt.farrell, you absolutely do not need to drag layers over the field name, you can drag them over either the field name or the thumbnail, it makes no difference at all, I'm not attempting to nest the layer simply drag it between two Picture Frame layers...

Hopefully this video will further demonstrate the issue...

[Hangman]

Experimenting further, it is actually possible to drop the text layer between the two picture frame layers, though it is extremely difficult. What you don't get is the horizontal blue line drop zone indicator and looking at what is happening on the canvas itself, it looks as though the layer initially attempts to nest just prior to physically dropping the layer itself...

[walt.farrell]

36 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hopefully this video will further demonstrate the issue...

Thank you. Much clearer.

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Thank you. Much clearer.

I assume you're not seeing the issue on Windows?

The other 'interesting' observation is that when dragging the text layer over another text layer, the whole layer is highlighted, when dragged over a picture frame layer, only the field text is highlighted...

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I assume you're not seeing the issue on Windows?

Have not had time to experiment further. Sorry.

[laurent32]

What I do is put the cursor below the text "Picture frame" and wait for a second and then the blue line appears…

But it is not an "easy" way of doing…

What are you using to put video online ? QuickTime Player ?

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, laurent32 said:

What I do is put the cursor below the text "Picture frame" and wait for a second and then the blue line appears…

I find when doing that it jumps between the drop zone horizontal blue line and highlighting the field name for the picture frame even without moving the mouse, so, a bit tricky, hopefully it will be fixed soon though at least the process works in reverse as a temporary workaround...

[laurent32]

 

 

[Hangman]

I'm finding it a little less predictable but maybe it's down to screen resolution or mouse sensitivity?

[laurent32]

2 minutes ago, Hangman said:

maybe it's down to screen resolution or mouse sensitivity

Could be… ?

[loukash]

3 hours ago, Hangman said:

You can't currently position Frame and Art Text layers between adjacent Picture Frames in the Layers panel

Confimed, MacOS Catalina.
Definitely a regression from v1.

1 hour ago, laurent32 said:

put the cursor below the text "Picture frame" and wait for a second and then the blue line appears…
But it is not an "easy" way of doing…

Yes, that workaround works…

43 minutes ago, Hangman said:

down to screen resolution or mouse sensitivity?

Hard to tell. MBP mid-2012 non-retina (the last matte!) display here.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

I assume you're not seeing the issue on Windows?

I'm seeing something different on my Win 10 machine than I saw earlier on my Win 11 machine. On the other hand, on Win 11 I was in the Light UI and things weren't as visible as they are in the Dark UI I've just switched to on Win 10. This is using 2.0.3.

What I'm seeing seems a bit weird, but I don't have time to try to get a recording. And won't have time for a few days, so I'll just describe it. I'm getting the drop-zone highlighting alternating between the two locations. So, I start to drag the text frame down over a picture frame, and when I'm over the name field of the picture frame I get a blue highlight between the two layers, then the highlight over the picture frame, and they switch back and forth every 1/4 to 1/2 second, roughly. If I drag a bit further down, I get the blue highlight between the picture frame and the next layer down, and it alternates between a highlight above the picture frame layer and below the picture frame layer. There's no single stable highlight showing. it always alternates between two locations.

I'd like to try it on the Win 11 machine again (after changing to the Dark UI) but I won't have time probably until Sunday or later.

 

[Hangman]

@walt.farrell, that sounds pretty similar to the behaviour in the last video I posted, four posts above this one...

[loukash]

1 hour ago, laurent32 said:

What are you using to put video online ? QuickTime Player ?

Slightly off topic, but…

On Mac, I found the most simple screencast workflow being the built-in QuickTime recorder first, then processing the *.mov via HandBrake with a custom preset to massively compress the *.mov and to make it a *.mp4 so that it doesn't have to be downloaded as a file here on the forum.
The original *.mov was 6.3 MB, this compressed *.mp4 is just 434 KB:

 

 

[laurent32]

Thanks @loukash, that is what I used (QuickTime recorder) and yes I just dropped the (heavy) file below where it says "Drag files here" and then I clicked it…

Seems to work fine this way.

I also use (for bigger project) HandBrake that is great !

[Hangman]

1 minute ago, loukash said:

On Mac, I found the most simple screencast workflow being the built-in QuickTime recorder first, then processing the *.mov via HandBrake with a custom preset to massively compress the *.mov and to make it a *.mp4 so that it doesn't have to be downloaded as a file here on the forum.

I do the same, I export from Quicktime recorder as 1080p but then use Veed.io to convert to .mp4. Being on a mac I have zero issues viewing .mov or .mp4 but I know many others do and I don't think this forum actualy supports .mov files. Using the standard Veed settings 50Mb compresses down to 4Mb...

[laurent32]

Can you see the video I downloaded ?

It's a pure .mov from QuickTime recorder (3,2 Mo).

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I don't think this forum actualy supports .mov files

The forum does, but some browsers don't:
Firefox shows them inline while my browser of choice Brave shows them as files to download. Don't know if it's some kind of a security setting though. My security/privacy browser settings are quite "paranoid".

[Hangman]

4 minutes ago, laurent32 said:

Can you see the video I downloaded ?

It's a pure .mov from QuickTime recorder (3,2 Mo).

It's as @loukash says, it's browser specific, for me on Firefox (my browser of choice) and Safari and iOS (as you would expect) I see it inline, on Chrome only as a file to download but that's likely because I don't have the Quicktime Plug-in installed for Chrome and I doubt many Windows users have the Quicktime plug-in installed for their respective browsers which is where a lot of the issues lay where people are unable to view certain video content inline if it's in the .mov format...

[laurent32]

Thanks @Hangman, I'll use HandBrake too to convert to .mp4 too…

[NathanC]

Hi @Hangman,

Many thanks for providing detail and a recording, i've replicated this and it has now been logged with the developers. 🙂

On Windows this is equally difficult, as Walt mentioned the highlighted drop-zone very quickly cycles between clipping into the frame and dropping in-between.