Designer Mac: color picker with pencil

[SuperBagarrh]

This problem continued after I updated designer v2 for Mac tonight.

Both the user manual and the prompt at the bottom of screen suggests that:

drag plus option/alt while using the pencil tool will activate the color picker. 
 

i tried this many many times for an hour but the color picker was only activated for about 3 occasions. In all other trials I was just holding the option key while the pencil tool produce a regular curve as if i didn’t hold the option key and there is no difference.
 

I also tried command to switch to node tool and shift and control for straight lines and those works as described in the user manual.

i thought I was using this drag plus option incorrectly until I used the vector brush tool which also can use option drag to activate the color picker. The vector brush tool can easily become the color picker whenever I option drag. While if I use the pencil tool the option drag almost never become the color picker as expected.

So I realize this is a bug! As it works for the vector brush tool but not the pencil tool! Though both tools has this option drag shortcut to toggle the color picker!

 

Thank you for looking into this and verify it and potentially fix it!

 

 

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Please confirm which release of Designer 2 you're now running. You can see this on the Splash screen when you start the application, or on the upper right in the Account dialog, or in the About dialog.

[SuperBagarrh]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Please confirm which release of Designer 2 you're now running. You can see this on the Splash screen when you start the application, or on the upper right in the Account dialog, or in the About dialog.

The release is 2.1.1 that I updated yesterday.

The Macos is Ventura 13.4.

 

it’s about the option key plus drag shortcut to activate the color picker, which should work similarly for pencil and vector brush tools, but actually only work for vector brush but not for pencil.

 

Thank you 

[Callum]

This seems to work fine with the Pencil tool here for me. Holding Alt and then left clicking selects and colour my mouse is currently hovering over. What happens when you try this?

Thanks
C

[SuperBagarrh]

22 hours ago, Callum said:

This seems to work fine with the Pencil tool here for me. Holding Alt and then left clicking selects and colour my mouse is currently hovering over. What happens when you try this?

Thanks
C

@Callum I am using a MacBook Air so I'm using the clickboard instead of a mouse. And I am using single/double finger clicks on the board for left/right clicks of the mouse. 

When I hold the option key (alt equivalent for mac) and drag on the clickboard with one finger while using the pencil tool, I just get a normal curve as if I didn't hold the option key. While it switch to the color picker if I do the same with the vector brush tool.

 

 

[Hangman]

Hi @SuperBagarrh,

This is working correctly with both the Pencil and Vector Brush tools for me, using a two-finger left mouse click on the trackpad which suggests it is working as expected so I'm slightly baffled as to why it's not working for you with the Pencil tool... 🤔

[SuperBagarrh]

@Hangman Thanks for looking into this. I tested with my mouse and this feature works fine.

It worked when I left click holding the option key and drag. But it still doesn't work when I single finger click the trackpad + option key and drag (it just produce a curve as usual).

To my understanding, these two actions should be equivalent, as in MacBook single finger trackpad click = left mouse click, and double finger trackpad click = right mouse click.

(not sure what you meant by two-finger left mouse click as my mouse is just a regular scroll wheel mouse that doesn't differentiate how many fingers you use to click either the left/right parts, and only my Mac trackpad can tell how many fingers I am using)

So to summarize, the mouse method works with both tools while the trackpad method only works for the vector brush tool.

 

 

[Hangman]

17 minutes ago, SuperBagarrh said:

To my understanding, these two actions should be equivalent, as in MacBook single finger trackpad click = left mouse click, and double finger trackpad click = right mouse click.

My default settings are:

• two fingers trackpad = left mouse click
• single finger trackpad = right click

Try changing your right click to a single finger and then see if an alt plus two finger drag on the trackpad works for the left click with both the Pen and Vector Brush tools to allow you to select colours...