Long press tool shortcuts

[Circulus]

14 minutes ago, Hangman said:

One thing you seemingly can't do using a Long Press (which may be because it's not designed to work that way), is to change the brush size using the [ and ] keys.

Long Press 'B' in Designer or Photo to select the Brush Tool, and press [ or ] to decrease/increase the brush size with the 'B' key still pressed and it reverts back to the Move tool.

Though fiddly, you can however use Hold B>ctrl+alt dragging up/down and left/right.
Not switching back to only the movetool but I think you meant the previous(current tool in use) before the longpress override.
Another issue arose while doing my approach above(b +ctrl+alt+dragging) it may create a new pixellayer while being on a pixellayer already or deselects the pixellayer altogether depending on when or which key may be released first.
I think Serif should add the square brackets and don't allow the b +ctrl+alt+dragging combo.

[Chris B]

20 hours ago, Return said:

I think Serif should add the square brackets and don't allow the b +ctrl+alt+dragging combo.

I agree. B+Ctrl+Alt+Drag does not feel natural to me either. It started to fatigue my hands.

 

Update - I've logged this as an improvement

[Frozen Death Knight]

On 7/5/2023 at 9:52 AM, Chris B said:

Hey Frozen Death Knight, can you send us your user data, please? We cannot reproduce what you are describing

https://www.dropbox.com/request/KVlocxyduQXCoQOQwSbj

Not sure where I find that kind of data. Is Affinity actually logging button presses somewhere?

[Chris B]

Sorry, I should have specified what I meant. It's the user folder located here:

C:\Users\yourusername\.affinity\2.0 (Beta)\user - if you can zip the user folder up I can replace mine with yours. For what it is worth, I did manage to reproduce what you said but after resetting the app, I can no longer do it. 

[Frozen Death Knight]

11 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Sorry, I should have specified what I meant. It's the user folder located here:

C:\Users\yourusername\.affinity\2.0 (Beta)\user - if you can zip the user folder up I can replace mine with yours. For what it is worth, I did manage to reproduce what you said but after resetting the app, I can no longer do it. 

Ah, got it. 

Yeah, the bug is pretty hard to activate on a whim. Sometimes I am able to use the feature no problem for a while, then all of a sudden modifiers start behaving weirdly. I think it may be related to change brush sizes when having press hold activated, but it may be something else entirely as well.

[michael_o]

Awesome new tweak. But one thing is still not perfect:

While in a workflow and I want to use the pipette for f.e. picking a color from another object, this doesn't work, as the pipette for style needs to be switched twice to get there from the “normal” pipette version. I guess a shortcut in general for the style pipette would be handy. I could add that myself, but I assume all would benefit from that. This is a no-brainer in Adobe (sorry ;)) and was possible in Macromedia for years …

[Hangman]

Hi @michael_o,

5 minutes ago, michael_o said:

While in a workflow and I want to use the pipette for f.e. picking a color from another object, this doesn't work, as the pipette for style needs to be switched twice to get there from the “normal” pipette version. I guess a shortcut in general for the style pipette would be handy. I could add that myself, but I assume all would benefit from that.

I think you may have answered your own question... simply add a unique shortcut for the pipette tool and this will then work...

 

[Chris B]

32 minutes ago, michael_o said:

Awesome new tweak. But one thing is still not perfect:

While in a workflow and I want to use the pipette for f.e. picking a color from another object, this doesn't work, as the pipette for style needs to be switched twice to get there from the “normal” pipette version. I guess a shortcut in general for the style pipette would be handy. I could add that myself, but I assume all would benefit from that. This is a no-brainer in Adobe (sorry ;)) and was possible in Macromedia for years …

As Hangman said and you also pointed out, you would need to add a unique shortcut to make this work. Not all tools have a shortcut so I'm not convinced the Style Picker Tool needs one by default.

[Circulus]

3 minutes ago, Chris B said:

you would need to add a unique shortcut to make this work.

If only, as with the issue with the numpad, we could have modifiers with the tools too.
It would be so much easier to assign user shortcuts.

[Chris B]

4 minutes ago, Return said:

If only, as with the issue with the numpad, we could have modifiers with the tools too.
It would be so much easier to assign user shortcuts.

Agreed. I am working on a report for the developers which some suggestions so I'll include this.

[Frozen Death Knight]

@Chris B Been trying the release candidate builds now and the issue with the keybinds flip-flopping still persists. I would strongly recommend not releasing 2.2 until this bug is resolved, since it makes the programs very hard to use across the board, and people will definitely notice it.

[Chris B]

Please keep the discussion regarding the UI Panels out of this thread which is related to long-pressing tools. I've moved the UI Panels discussion here - 

 

[Chris B]

11 hours ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

@Chris B Been trying the release candidate builds now and the issue with the keybinds flip-flopping still persists. I would strongly recommend not releasing 2.2 until this bug is resolved, since it makes the programs very hard to use across the board, and people will definitely notice it.

This is not a blocker and nor would it stop 2.2 going out but we do feel it needs addressing.

[Sean P]

12 hours ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

@Chris B Been trying the release candidate builds now and the issue with the keybinds flip-flopping still persists. I would strongly recommend not releasing 2.2 until this bug is resolved, since it makes the programs very hard to use across the board, and people will definitely notice it.

I'm not sure if this is exactly the same, but I feel its related. Whilst looking into this with Chris I've found an issue whereby using the brush resize keys can cause the app to keep switching tool:

1. Start a new document in Photo
2. Press B to select the brush tool
3. Click on the canvas to paint and add a pixel layer
4. Hold down E to switch to the Eraser
5. With that held down, tap B 
6. Now release E
7. Use [ and ] to resize Brush
   • ❌Observe it will start switching between brush and eraser when resizing

Note, if you don’t do steps 4-6 relatively quickly it is likely to not occur. If you don’t manage to reproduce it follow Steps 4-6 again (ensuring you start with the Paint Brush Tool selected). The document remains in this state until you restart the app.

 

[Frozen Death Knight]

1 hour ago, Chris B said:

This is not a blocker and nor would it stop 2.2 going out but we do feel it needs addressing.

Having the tools constantly switch when resizing a brush, undoing, etc., etc. is to me a big problem. The bug happens to me on a regular basis. The only option to temporarily fix it is to reboot and I'd rather work in 2.1 than having to do that constantly.

42 minutes ago, Sean P said:

I'm not sure if this is exactly the same, but I feel its related. Whilst looking into this with Chris I've found an issue whereby using the brush resize keys can cause the app to keep switching tool:

1. Start a new document in Photo
2. Press B to select the brush tool
3. Click on the canvas to paint and add a pixel layer
4. Hold down E to switch to the Eraser
5. With that held down, tap B 
6. Now release E
7. Use [ and ] to resize Brush
   • ❌Observe it will start switching between brush and eraser when resizing

Note, if you don’t do steps 4-6 relatively quickly it is likely to not occur. If you don’t manage to reproduce it follow Steps 4-6 again (ensuring you start with the Paint Brush Tool selected). The document remains in this state until you restart the app.

 

Yes, that is the exact bug I was talking about. Once it activates, it doesn't matter what key you press on the keyboard. It will keep jumping between tools like that until you reboot the program (alt colour picking seems to be the only exception). This bug has happened in every single painting session I've had for weeks now. My keyboard pressing habits eventually end up with broken keybinds and it becomes very hard to get any work done in that state.

[walt.farrell]

FYI, @Chris B, a user who got the accidental upgrade to 2.2 when it was briefly released a few weeks ago seems to be having this problem, too.

 

[debraspicher]

I don't paint enough outside of masking to run into this issue, partly because the program has so many usability/performance issues for those tasks on my end. If it's as @Frozen Death Knight describes, it really should be patched before moving to release. There's still other brush/tablet-related bugs also that still exist from the last beta cycle. Leaving these in again adds to the complaints that there's not enough focus on polish throughout development:

I still also have issues with the program losing focus and having to minimize/maximize to get panels responding again. I feel like we reported it before, but I can't think of where that thread would be or what it would be called. It might not be an obvious name. Regardless, if it's not easy to reproduce, I can understand it not being immediately patched. Perhaps these are related. Some feedback would be helpful to understand the obstacles that need to be overcome to get these bugs fixed.

[Chris B]

15 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

FYI, @Chris B, a user who got the accidental upgrade to 2.2 when it was briefly released a few weeks ago seems to be having this problem, too.

Thanks. We can add that thread to the report which is now logged.

[Ash]

Thanks All - we've got a fix for that bug @Frozen Death Knight described, will get it in before another RC later this week.

[Frozen Death Knight]

2 hours ago, Ash said:

Thanks All - we've got a fix for that bug @Frozen Death Knight described, will get it in before another RC later this week.

Thank you for getting it fixed for the release!

[Affinityconfusesme]

Same. Thanks for fixing it.🙂

[Ash]

We have just pushed another build which includes a few important fixes, including the fix for this (hopefully!) Would appreciate if you could confirm this build solves this problem.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Using long press shortcuts can cause brush resize to switch between two tools" (REF: PD-981) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.2.0.1994".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

[Traceyg]

1 hour ago, Ash said:

We have just pushed another build which includes a few important fixes, including the fix for this (hopefully!) Would appreciate if you could confirm this build solves this problem.

It works on my apps

[Frozen Death Knight]

Had some time to work in the latest build now. Everything seems to be working fine. Thanks a bunch!