Auto select option in move tool

[Ash]

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad

First of all the auto select drop down in move tool which was added to Affinity Photo in V2 has now been added to both Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher, as requested numerous times from customers. This now allows you to optionally disable the move tool auto selecting objects when you click on them. This can be particularly useful when moving and transforming objects which maybe within designs where you can accidentally select something else, or you are working at a zoom level where it's hard to get the hit zone to drag-move an object. Now if you have an object selected and have auto select turned off you can drag anywhere on your document to move it.

You will see this option as a check box (icon on iPad) to toggle auto-select on or off, followed by a dropdown menu:

The drop down gives you the following options

• Default - This is default behaviour, clicking on any objects or groups will select them.
• Objects / Layers - This will ignore any groups and automatically drill to select any child object you click on. This saves you needing to keep double clicking or cmd-clicking to drill into groups in complex designs. 
• Groups - This has limited use, but is another option you can choose if you want auto select to only select groups. i.e. if you click on an object which is not part of a group nothing will be selected, if you click on an object which is part of a group the group will be selected.
• Under (iPad only) - this will toggle your selection through the z-order of the layer stack in the case of objects which are stacked on top of each other. This achieves the same as previously setting the selection target to under (or holding alt).

Note:

• Now this drop down has been added the previous context toolbar option of "Allow selection to consider items inside of groups" has been removed. This is because that gave the same behaviour as what "Auto Select: Objects" now does from the new drop down.
• On iPad the previous Selection Target menu has been removed from the move tool context menu as any functionality which was previously possible with those options can be achieved using this new feature.

 

[lepr]

Great to see the word "objects" being officially used instead of "layers" in reference to things which are not Layers (capital el), but disappointed to not see exactly the same wording in Photo for consistency between all Affinity apps.

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by ,,,
deleted misunderstanding

[Hangman]

7 hours ago, Ash said:

Auto select: Groups - This has limited use, but is another option you can choose if you want auto select to only select groups. i.e. if you click on an object which is not part of a group nothing will be selected, if you click on an object which is part of a group the group will be selected.

Before raising this as a potential bug I just wanted to clarify whether or not this is expected behaviour as it doesn't appear correct...

When Auto-Select Groups is the chosen mode for the Move tool, Alt Clicking on the canvas only cycles between the two uppermost groups rather than cycling through all relevant groups in the Layer stack which would have been my expectation...

[lepr]

Bug in beta 2.1.0.1713 on macOS: when Auto-select is Objects or Groups, using opt-click in the document view to mark a key object amongst multiple already selected objects fails and has the same result as a regular click, that is objects become deselected except for the one that was clicked. The alternative of opt-clicking in Layers panel does succeed in marking a key object..

The similar bug when "Allow selection to consider items in a group" was enabled was fixed in the previous beta of 2.1, if I remember correctly.

[Frozen Death Knight]

10 hours ago, Ash said:

Auto select: Groups 

This feature is really nice, thank you. Makes it easier to search for specific layers across your entire project when using ctrl+R click with the Move Tool.

Would be cool if ctrl+R click to search and select specific layers with these new settings would work for other tools as well such as the Brush Tool, Eraser Tool, etc. Really the only missing puzzle piece for me in regards to selecting the right layers while painting on the fly.

[Ash]

3 hours ago, Hangman said:

When Auto-Select Groups is the chosen mode for the Move tool, Alt Clicking on the canvas only cycles between the two uppermost groups rather than cycling through all relevant groups in the Layer stack which would have been my expectation...

Yeah I'd say that was a bug - I'd have same expectation as you...

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, Ash said:

Yeah I'd say that was a bug - I'd have same expectation as you...

Thanks for confirming... I'll add it as a bug report in the V2 Bug forum...

[Hangman]

Auto-select Off

A couple of observations...

• Should it still be possible to marquee select objects when Auto-select Off is active?
   
• If ‘yes’ then the only way to deselect individual objects on the canvas is by using esc.
   
• The status bar text needs updating to reflect the changes that Auto-select Off brings since objects can now only be click selected via the layers panel… the current options are no longer valid:
   
  • Click an object to select it
  • Click another object to select it (if you've already made a marquee selection)
  • Click on an empty area to deselect selection

 

It would also be nice if there were a keyboard option (Alt or Cmd) to toggle auto-select on, to allow for a quick selection when working in Auto-select Off mode.

[Ash]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

Should it still be possible to marquee select objects when Auto-select Off is active?

No - are you getting that behaviour?

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

It would also be nice if there were a keyboard option (Alt or Cmd) to toggle auto-select on, to allow for a quick selection when working in Auto-select Off mode.

Agreed, we are looking at adding cmd to temporarily toggle back on.

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, Ash said:

No - are you getting that behaviour?

Certainly on macOS...

1 hour ago, Ash said:

Agreed, we are looking at adding cmd to temporarily toggle back on.

Perfect, that will be very welcomed...

[GRAFKOM]

Is it possible to have the Auto-select drop-down list placed somewhere else in the context bar, e.g. at the end of the context bar.
In the beta version of Affinity 2.1, this drop-down list item has been added on the left side of the screen (maybe it's better to replace it with icons - it would be faster access) and the entire bar jumps by the width of this list when working on a project.
For example, we draw a rectangle, a context bar is displayed regarding the rectangle, and if I click on the arrow icon, all elements of the bar move to the right.
Working with text is the worst.
When selecting the text icon, the font list is at the edge of the screen - OK, but clicking on the arrow icon moves the font list to the right, so the rest of the bar also moves. This causes unnecessary movement at the top of the screen as you work.
However, Affinity 1 and Affinity 2.0 work better. There is no movement of the context bar when selecting, for example, rectangle - arrow, text - arrow.
I am not saying that there is no Auto-select drop-down list, but that it is in a different place (possibly icons).

 

[lepr]

17 minutes ago, GRAFKOM said:

I am not saying that there is no Auto-select drop-down list, but that it is in a different place (possibly icons).

Auto-select affects many tools. Its control should be in the main toolbar, not in the context toolbar of Move Tool, in my opinion.

[Designer1]

@Ash Affinity designer offers an unlimited number of art boards. What needs to be improved, however, is the complete hiding of artboards. Especially if you have many artboards, this would be a great advantage so that you can focus on only one artboard.

[Ash]

15 hours ago, GRAFKOM said:

Is it possible to have the Auto-select drop-down list placed somewhere else in the context bar, e.g. at the end of the context bar.

Yes we are looking at this, thanks.

[Ash]

4 hours ago, Designer1 said:

Affinity designer offers an unlimited number of art boards. What needs to be improved, however, is the complete hiding of artboards

That's somewhat off topic for this thread, but noted!

[lepr]

On 3/3/2023 at 2:00 PM, Ash said:

No - are you getting that behaviour?

Yes and there's more to it: when marquee selecting in 2.1.0.1713 (macOS), all modes of Auto-select have no influence.

(Except if Auto-select is 'Off' and there is already a selection: trying to marquee will move the already selected object(s) rather than draw out a marquee, and I expect that is by design.)

[Hangman]

2 hours ago, ,,, said:

Yes and there's more to it: when marquee selecting in 2.1.0.1713 (macOS), all modes of Auto-select have no influence.

Can you elaborate, for me marquee selection works as expected when Auto-select is in On, Object or Group Modes... when you say 'all modes of Auto-select have no influence', what do you mean?

[lepr]

47 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Can you elaborate, for me marquee selection works as expected when Auto-select is in On, Object or Group Modes... when you say 'all modes of Auto-select have no influence', what do you mean?

For me, marquee selecting is as it was in Affinity 1.x, regardless of which of the four Auto-select modes is set (yes, I know 'On' is supposed to be like Affinity 1.x was, so I suppose that option is functioning correctly in a sense), except for the following situation:

If Auto-select is 'Off' and there is already a selection, trying to marquee will move the already selected object(s) rather than draw out a marquee, and I expect that is by design.

Try marquee selecting in this simple test document: 

Auto-select test (2.1.0.1713).afdesign

[Ash]

Actually I think there is a bug here. If you have a group of things, and have auto select set to 'objects' you should be able to marquee around a subset of the objects in the group to select them but that doesn't seem to be working. Basically in that state it should be like it was previously when you had "Allow selection to consider items within groups" toggled on.

But yes if auto select is off then a drag will move the currently selected item - that is one of the points of having this, that you can drag anywhere on document to move your selected object so your cursor can be out the way / you don't have to worry about being directly over it if the object is very small at your current zoom level.

[GRAFKOM]

25 minutes ago, Ash said:

that is one of the points of having this, that you can drag anywhere on document to move your selected object so your cursor can be out the way / you don't have to worry about being directly over it if the object is very small at your current zoom level.

And this is where some shortcut key should be provided, I was thinking of spacebar but spacebar is taken.
By pressing a shortcut key, while pressing this key, you can move the selected object without clicking on it directly.

[Hangman]

53 minutes ago, Ash said:

Actually I think there is a bug here. If you have a group of things, and have auto select set to 'objects' you should be able to marquee around a subset of the objects in the group to select them but that doesn't seem to be working. Basically in that state it should be like it was previously when you had "Allow selection to consider items within groups" toggled on.

This is still possible though maybe not how it was intended... In 2.0.4 with "Allow selection to consider items within groups" toggled on the only way you could achieve that is by using the Ctrl key (on macOS, pess and hold the right-mouse button along with the left one on Windows) after you start the marquee drag unless "Select objects when interescts with selection marquee" was off, otherwise in the example below your marquee selection would include the grey background....

In 2.1.0.1713 you can achieve the same thing using the Ctrl + Cmd keys (on macOS, unsure what the combination would now be on Windows but possibly the same as before) after you start the marquee drag but with "Select objects when interescts with selection marquee" off using Ctrl + Cmd after the marquee drag then selects the grey background which it shouldn't...

[lepr]

1 hour ago, Ash said:

Actually I think there is a bug here. If you have a group of things, and have auto select set to 'objects' you should be able to marquee around a subset of the objects in the group to select them but that doesn't seem to be working. Basically in that state it should be like it was previously when you had "Allow selection to consider items within groups" toggled on.

Yes, that's what I expected from 'Objects' and it is functional when clicking on an object, but no different to 'On' when marqueeing. Also Auto-select 'Groups' is functioning when clicking on an object, but it too is no different to 'On' when marqueeing.

[Ash]

@Hangman yes the behaviour you are showing there with cmd held down is what the behaviour should be without any modifier if you have auto select set to objects. Anyway, we're reviewing this behaviour and will hopefully get it right (well at least to what we think is right!) in an update soon.

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Auto-Select Groups Failing to Cycle Through the Complete Layer Stack") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: PD-464). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[GRAFKOM]

The longer I work in the latest Beta Affinity, the more nervous I get.
I'm talking about the Auto-select drop-down list.
It needs to be moved elsewhere.
Working with text is the worst.
If I have the text icon selected and I'm writing text on the screen, the list of fonts is on the left side of the screen. It's always been like this and it's convenient.
However, if I select the text with the arrow and want to select a different font, the font list moves 5cm on the screen, and I automatically click on the Auto-select list, which suddenly shows up where the font list was a moment ago.
Please Serif - change it.
This is very annoying.
Has anyone from Serif tried to work on your programs? Do you just design these programs? Only for whom?