Photo: Tab (Toggle UI) hides / shows only once unless mouse is clicked

[lphilpot]

Photo 2.1.0.1706 on Windows 11

It's probably not something you'd do regularly, but pressing Tab to toggle the UI works for only one hide / show "cycle" unless the mouse is clicked somewhere on the application. It will then hide / show only once until it's clicked again, and so on. It's like some kind of focus is lost between cycles.

I confirmed Tab in 2.0.4 works repeatedly without requiring mouse clicks.

Thanks.

[Old Bruce]

It works here on Mac OS 11.7 That is with all three applications.

[walt.farrell]

Works for me, too. Only tested on my Windows 11 machine so far (and probably won't get to the Windows 10 machine until tomorrow).

[lphilpot]

Restarting the app makes no difference and the behavior is the same with the physical and on-screen keyboards. Retail version remains OK, just the 2.1 beta.

[carl123]

Works fine here (Windows 11)

[Ron P.]

Works fine here (Windows 10)

[lphilpot]

More keyboard issues -- I just had an instance where Ctrl+Z (Undo) did nothing until the app was restarted. I tried several different editing operations (Fill with primary color, Gaussian blur filter, rotate, etc.) on more than one file and Ctrl+Z would not undo them, although selecting Undo from the Edit menu (or altering history) worked. The shortcut key is shown on the Edit menu but the keyboard shortcut didn't work until the app was restarted.

This is a laptop with an external (dasKeyboard) keyboard. However, every time any issue has shown up it's been the same on the external keyboard, built-in keyboard and (when I tried it) the Windows soft keyboard.

[debraspicher]

1 hour ago, lphilpot said:

More keyboard issues -- I just had an instance where Ctrl+Z (Undo) did nothing until the app was restarted. I tried several different editing operations (Fill with primary color, Gaussian blur filter, rotate, etc.) on more than one file and Ctrl+Z would not undo them, although selecting Undo from the Edit menu (or altering history) worked. The shortcut key is shown on the Edit menu but the keyboard shortcut didn't work until the app was restarted.

This is a laptop with an external (dasKeyboard) keyboard. However, every time any issue has shown up it's been the same on the external keyboard, built-in keyboard and (when I tried it) the Windows soft keyboard.

Tab to toggle interface is not causing an issue for me. When your Tab issue occurs, does it respond to other shortcuts before having to resort to using the mouse?

I've had issues with Designer (which I use the most) becoming non-responsive to my keyboard when working with certain tools. Using Undo a lot and working quickly seems to cause it to trigger that state more often. I feel like you say, it's a matter of the interface losing focus somehow to the keyboard. It is highly intermittent. Messing with the right panel seemingly fixes it.

[lphilpot]

14 minutes ago, debraspicher said:

Tab to toggle interface is not causing an issue for me. When your Tab issue occurs, does it respond to other shortcuts before having to resort to using the mouse?

OK, I hadn't noticed that before. I guess I was clicking enough anyway during editing to mask it, but -- The Tab issue isn't just about Tab exclusively, apparently any keyboard shortcut is disabled after hitting Tab twice (to hide / display UI). I thought it was just Tab that got disabled, but it seems to be all shortcuts (combos, tools, etc.). When I click on the app UI (in most areas, a few UI elements apparently don't work), shortcut functionality is restored.

[Kasper-V]

I found that all of the keyboard shortcuts worked only intermittently. Another user, maxen, said 'Clicking on an objects/layers name to rename it, triggers the problem. The shortcuts get active again as soon as the name field isn't active anymore and you switch to another tool or create a new object.' If I click off the layers panel to deselect (Ctrl-D won't do it!) the kb shortcuts become active again. I should think this applies to Tab too, though I haven't tried it.

[lphilpot]

34 minutes ago, N.P.M. said:

I do find that the tab key in usage for this UI function has been a wrong choice.
Tab is a UI modifier to go to next field or to be used in text only.
I think F11,like in browsers was a better choice for the (semi)fullscreen mode.
 

Agreed. Tab has an established default function already in a UI context, and this (hide widgets)  isn't it. 

[Ron P.]

Lightroom uses the Tab key for the same purpose, to hide parts of the UI.

 

[Kasper-V]

The shortcuts issue appears to be fixed in the new release (1079). 

[lphilpot]

3 hours ago, Kasper-V said:

The shortcuts issue appears to be fixed in the new release (1079). 

Nope, not for me at least. Was it ever broken for you in the first place?

It continues to work correctly in 2.0.4 but is still broken in 1079 (EXE here). It's the second Tab press that breaks. Until that's pressed, shortcut keys work (Ctrl+O, Ctrl+N, etc.) but after the second Tab press neither Tab nor any other shortcut keys work (as far as I've experienced). It appears some kind of focus, connection, association, etc., is lost and until the mouse it clicked, it's not restored.

[Chris B]

I'm really keen to get to the bottom of this as I've come across some other focus/shortcut issues but I cannot reproduce the Tab issue you are struggling with @lphilpot

[lphilpot]

TBH, I'm not really struggling with it, per se, since I don't hide UI elements. I came across it by accident but when I encountered other shortcut issues I was concerned. Now that I know what apparently causes them I just don't press Tab LOL.  😆 But of course it needs to get fixed nonetheless.

Thanks.

[Kasper-V]

20 hours ago, lphilpot said:

Nope, not for me at least. Was it ever broken for you in the first place?

No . . . it just seems to be not-working differently -- I think. But it was broken before.

[lphilpot]

4 hours ago, Kasper-V said:

it just seems to be not-working differently

Well, maybe that's progress!!  LOL

[debraspicher]

On 2/23/2023 at 10:03 AM, lphilpot said:

TBH, I'm not really struggling with it, per se, since I don't hide UI elements. I came across it by accident but when I encountered other shortcut issues I was concerned. Now that I know what apparently causes them I just don't press Tab LOL.  😆 But of course it needs to get fixed nonetheless.

Thanks.

Try not to hit the red button again out of morbid curiosity.

Spoiler

[lphilpot]

... hmmm... Wonder what this lever marked "FIRE" does... 

[lphilpot]

Slight update - I've also now seen more than once shortcut key non-response even when I've not touched Tab. For example, after editing an image, I press Ctrl+S to save and nothing happens. After a few tries, I press Tab twice, click the UI and then it works. But prior to that I had not touched Tab. So something is causing intermittent 'disconnects' to shortcut keys. However, it's been far too random to see any pattern so far.

[carl123]

12 hours ago, lphilpot said:

Slight update - I've also now seen more than once shortcut key non-response even when I've not touched Tab. For example, after editing an image, I press Ctrl+S to save and nothing happens. After a few tries, I press Tab twice, click the UI and then it works. But prior to that I had not touched Tab. So something is causing intermittent 'disconnects' to shortcut keys. However, it's been far too random to see any pattern so far.

This week's beta has a couple of shortcut fixes, you may want to give that a go, if not tried already

[_Th]

2.101.1714 — Just encountered the Tab to toggle issue. Though I'm not certain, I don't think it was happening before the following:

• Copied v1 preferences into v2 (C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Designer 1.0 > 2.0 (Beta)
• Saved a new Studio preset

For me, the first Tab will hide the UI. The second will restore it. Subsequent Tabs do nothing (noticeable) unless I click on the document/artboard or artboard background. It's almost as if a text field/setting box has the focus after the second tab...

[lphilpot]

11 hours ago, carl123 said:

This week's beta has a couple of shortcut fixes, you may want to give that a go, if not tried already

So far, so good with 1714. Tab works right, so hopefully the other issues are resolved.

The really irritating part is, I can't seem to restore my settings from the previous version. I've deleted and restored (from last night's backup) both of the Beta config folders: C:\Users\<me>\.affinity\Photo\2.0 (Beta) and C:\Users\<me>\.affinity\Common\2.0 (Beta). I've even copied my 2.0.4 config folder trees, but to no avail. I've looked in the registry and there's just a generic key under LocalMachine\Software\Serif that contains nothing specific to user configuration.

But still it's ignoring my customizations -- Why doesn't it pick up my settings??? It's getting very old having to waste (item by item) the better part of an hour reconfiguring everything after each new release. Grrr.... Really annoying.

[walt.farrell]

16 minutes ago, lphilpot said:

The really irritating part is, I can't seem to restore my settings from the previous version.

You shouldn't need to "restore" anything. Installing the new beta wouldn't change the settings from the older one. Even uninstalling the old beta using normal Windows processing and installing the new one wouldn't disturb those files.