Re-focusing Photo 2 app applies mouse click

[orangefizz]

In OS X, when the Photo 2 app is in the background and you click somewhere in the app's window to make it the active app, the app registers the re-focusing click as an action. So if I previously had the brush tool active, it would put a brush stroke where I clicked—or other tools with less noticeable effects.

What is especially concerning is that, for some tools like the brush, that click would cause the assistant to convert an image layer to a pixel layer without the user actually noticing. You'd end up doing work on a document without realizing that your precious image layer had been converted to pixels 20 minutes and several dozens steps ago.

This is not behavior I've seen in other apps; generally that first activating click is ignored.

[Gripsholm Lion]

I just tried this for myself and I experienced the same phenomenon. Not good! I don't believe that this is how applications are supposed to behave and I have only experienced this flaw in one other application in years of using Macs.

[Dan C]

Hi @orangefizz,

Thanks for your report!

I can confirm that I'm able to replicate this here and I will be logging this as a bug with our developers now.

I hope this helps

[walt.farrell]

On 4/19/2023 at 11:32 AM, Dan C said:

I can confirm that I'm able to replicate this here and I will be logging this as a bug with our developers now.

Just a comment: As far as I can tell, this is standard behavior on Windows, and not just for Affinity but for other applications that I've tried.

[orangefizz]

It seems to be dependent on the type of app. I a test across multiple OS X apps (Mac Mail, Chrome, TwistedWave, iMovie, FontLab, FontBook); some register the click, others don't. I don't remember Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign doing this (I could be wrong) but I think the crucial point to be made is that some single clicks in AP have rather serious consequences—like the assistant rasterizing an image layer (and who knows what else).

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, orangefizz said:

but I think the crucial point to be made is that some single clicks in AP have rather serious consequences—like the assistant rasterizing an image layer (and who knows what else).

I can certainly see that being a problem, and one that might not be immediately obvious. It just strikes me that Windows works that way, too, and so it seems "correct" to me even if an unwise click could cause issues. I also think about a scenario such as having (say) Photo and Designer active, with their application windows tiled so each takes half the screen.

If this behavior were changed, then when switching between the applications, it would take an additional click to do any actual work. For example, I might want to paint something on the Designer document, then just move the cursor over to the Photo document and make a brush stroke there. That's possible today, but if the behavior were changed I would need to click, then paint.

Also, if I wanted a guaranteed safe way of switching, in other cases, I could always use the Windows Task Bar or one of the other switching mechanisms (alt-Tab, etc.).

[orangefizz]

IDK how common it is for users to use design apps side by side...versus users working within general screen clutter. *btw: Alt-tab works if you only have a few apps open, but if the list is longer that becomes more work than just leaving a corner of the app visible behind the active window.

If the assistant functions weren't so major maybe it would matter less; turning that functionality off would solve one part of the problem (ie: don't convert an image to pixels if it wasn't the active window when clicked).

[Gripsholm Lion]

I'm not sure how relevant the Windows task bar really is to a discussion in the MacOS section. The two systems have some very different ways of working.

For example, some Mac users will have dock hiding enabled and may not use it all that much, if at all, or have some other variation in how they move around apps which may trigger this issue. I wasn't aware of it until seeing this post, but that's probably because I usually run these apps on a new desktop (i.e. full screen) and in any case switch between windows with Swish.

[walt.farrell]

The Mac dock is similar in some ways to the Windows Task Bar, I think, especially in that both can auto-hide.

The problem under discussion seems to affect both OSes, and presumably Serif would want both to behave similarly, so I'm interested in potential changes in this area, even though I'm not a Mac user.

[Dan C]

16 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

As far as I can tell, this is standard behavior on Windows, and not just for Affinity but for other applications that I've tried

I personally agree, I would expect on Windows when clicking any 'unfocused' app for the click to apply, due to the different way in which background windows are handled on Windows, compared to macOS.

I've logged the bug as a macOS issue only - though our developers may choose to implement the change for both OS's, that I cannot be certain of currently.

[orangefizz]

Things is, you're doing is intentionally tiling your apps side-by-side to be used simultaneously—ie: you *expect* that each click will have an effect. But if you're in a different 3rd party app, or browsing, or whatever, and you click in anywhere on the artboard of AP to focus the window, that click is registered. And if it happened to be, say, a paint brush tool selected on an image layer, the layer would be converted to a pixel layer, which you might not notice. Also, it's annoying that every time I refocus the app, I first have to check history and hit undo for whatever action may have been captured.

(hey Affinity: how do you quote a post that had a video without the whole video being reposted? Can't select the video to remove it from the quoted portion...)

[Dan C]

4 minutes ago, orangefizz said:

(hey Affinity: how do you quote a post that had a video without the whole video being reposted? Can't select the video to remove it from the quoted portion...)

Once a quote includes a video, I don't believe it's possible to selectively delete the video from the quote - however if you select the text only within the post, you should be able to create a 'quote' that does not include the video -

 
I hope this clears things up