Publisher won't change to Text Frame tool, stuck on Move

[MikeTO]

I'm having deja vu because this sounds like a couple of other bugs this beta cycle but this is a bit different and it's happening with 1971. I don't know how to trigger it but it's always after I update a TOC with Preflight. I've experienced it a few times in the past hour.

After updating the TOC I scroll to a page I want to edit and double click on a text frame to place the cursor but Publisher refuses to do it. The text frame doesn't become selected, or at least it doesn't visually indicate this. If I change apps to Safari and back then Publisher works fine. I'll pay more attention next time, I just realized it might actually be doing it but not refreshing the screen. Here's the history panel which shows the TOC update and then a bunch of attempts to place the cursor.

I don't recall having this bug until a recent beta but I don't know if it was new in 1954 or 1971.

[MikeTO]

It just happened again. I tried to record the screen to show that it was locked but the act of starting macOS' screen recording was enough to switch apps and end the issue. But this time I didn't get the long list of trying to place the cursor, nothing was recorded in history even though I double clicked many times. Next time I'll just play around longer and see if there's another action that might end the issue other than switching apps, because maybe there will be a clue there.

BTW I always update the TOC from preflight - I don't need to update the TOC all the time but I keep preflight open and I can't stop myself clicking on that Fix button. 🙂 

[Hangman]

Hi @MikeTO,

I've been trying to replicate this for the past half hour with a document following the same steps and thus far I've not been able to... I have seen a couple of totally unrelated things where switching to a different app and back again resolves the particular issue so it's difficult to know if it is simply a screen redraw issue or not...

[MikeTO]

6 hours ago, Hangman said:

Hi @MikeTO,

I've been trying to replicate this for the past half hour with a document following the same steps and thus far I've not been able to... I have seen a couple of totally unrelated things where switching to a different app and back again resolves the particular issue so it's difficult to know if it is simply a screen redraw issue or not...

I still can't reproduce it on demand but I'm trying to update my TOC as much as possible to trigger it and it keeps happening. I can't find the pattern.

The workaround is to choose the Text tool manually. When I do the cursor is where I clicked so I think Publisher is setting the insertion point, just not changing tool modes.

[Hangman]

27 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I still can't reproduce it on demand but I'm trying to update my TOC as much as possible to trigger it and it keeps happening. I can't find the pattern.

I'm sure you've likely already tried, but when this happens, have you tried doing a simple zoom in or out just on the off chance it is a screen redraw issue?

[MikeTO]

28 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I'm sure you've likely already tried, but when this happens, have you tried doing a simple zoom in or out just on the off chance it is a screen redraw issue?

I tried that, zoom doesn't solve it.

I've narrowed it down, it's not specific to updating the TOC. It's a problem with interacting with the Preflight panel. Clicking a Fix button for any error that is fixable can trigger the issue. I still don't have it repeatable but I'm getting closer.

[MikeTO]

I've come to the conclusion that isn't a TOC issue or Preflight issue but a general bug in 1971. Perhaps a fix made in this build for another issue caused this one.

This is happening me to several times an hour but I haven't found a pattern yet. I originally wrote that it wouldn't change to the text frame tool but that's only some of the times, other times the text tool is already selected, it just won't let me double click into a frame. I can click all day on any text frame and nothing will happen until I do something to clear the stuck mode (change docs, change apps, etc.)

It's so easy to clear that it's not a big deal but I'm surprised that others aren't reporting this with the Mac beta. The only thing I can say is that I keep all my panels docked and I imagine that if you have floating panels you might not experience this because activating a floating panel might clear it.

[Hangman]

18 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

It's so easy to clear that it's not a big deal but I'm surprised that others aren't reporting this with the Mac beta. The only thing I can say is that I keep all my panels docked and I imagine that if you have floating panels you might not experience this because activating a floating panel might clear it.

Is it happening on all documents or one specific document? What is the rough makeup of the document you're seeing this issue on, is it text only, a mix of text and images, are there any pinned objects or Affinity files placed in the document?

I have all my panels docked and I've still not experienced the issue to date...

Do you have a sample document where this is happening so we can see if we can replicate it?

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

Is it happening on all documents or one specific document? What is the rough makeup of the document you're seeing this issue on, is it text only, a mix of text and images, are there any pinned objects or Affinity files placed in the document?

I have all my panels docked and I've still not experienced the issue to date...

Do you have a sample document where this is happening so we can see if we can replicate it?

It's happening on multiple documents and I don't see any pattern.

Here's a new example for which I can provide a test doc but I don't think the document itself is relevant. I had two documents open. A big one (A) I've been working on and this test doc (B) that I'd recently opened. Doc B opened with a selected text frame because I'd saved it that way. I must have clicked on a blank area of the same page to deselect it and done nothing else because that's all I found in the history panel (Clear Selection) with the Move tool active when the problem occurred. I then went back to doc A and worked for several minutes. The last thing I did in that document was type text.

I switched to doc B (always using Cmd+`) and tried to click in a frame. The Move tool was active as it should be but double clicking wouldn't change to the Text tool and place the text cursor.

I can't reproduce it as I just described it so there must have been some action from before typing text in doc A that triggered it. I'm doing a lot of switching between active panels so it may have something to do with panels. I originally blamed this on preflight which I used a lot that day but I haven't used it much today. Today I've mainly used Find and Index in my left studio and Text Styles, Paragraph, and occasionally Layers or Transform in the right studio.

index test.afpub

[MikeTO]

It happened again just now. This time it was I was trying to select a text frame that wasn't linked to another frame. I wasn't using the panels at all. The text frame in question was grouped and pinned into a text frame but that's rarely the case for me when triggering this bug.

The text frame layer was selected in the layers panel. I could click other text frames and see that they were being selected but double clicking on any of them did nothing, Publisher was stuck on the Move tool. Now that I'm typing this I'm not 100% sure that there were visible size handles, there may just have been a bounding box. I can't switch apps to take notes because that clears the bug but maybe next time I'll use a second device (or maybe even pencil and paper) so I can write this up properly.

My suspicion is that this is a bit like the non-blinking cursor bug where you click by a field and the cursor doesn't blank and then if you press return it deletes the frame. In this case, the frame was getting selected but the cursor wasn't being placed, the tool didn't change from move to frame text. What might be happening is that Publisher thinks the frame text tool is already selected or that the text cursor is already placed. So this time since I was playing with frames that weren't linked I just started typing with the Move tool selected. It switched to frame text and started typing before the first character of the frame.

I had typed that frame's text just a few minutes earlier and I hadn't left it with the text cursor at the start of the frame when switching to the move tool so that might be a clue later on.

[Hangman]

11 hours ago, MikeTO said:

It happened again just now. This time it was I was trying to select a text frame that wasn't linked to another frame. I wasn't using the panels at all. The text frame in question was grouped and pinned into a text frame but that's rarely the case for me when triggering this bug.

I've still been unable to replicate this regardless of the combinations I've tried...

For me, the only time double-clicking a text frame doesn't select the Text Frame tool is when there is a nested, pinned text frame. In that instance, it requires a double-click, followed by a single-click to change the Move tool to the Text Frame tool. A triple-click doesn't work and neither does a single click followed by a double-click but that's clearly not the issue you're seeing...

I'll keep experimenting in the meantime...

[Gabe]

I wonder whether it's worth trying to do a screen recording to see exactly what's happened before it gets to that state. 

[Pauls]

I can get something similar by switching documents, going to a different page and trying to activate a different text frame on that page. Focus seems to stay on a previously selected text frame.

Update - the new text frame was linked so focus was staying at the story end which was on the previous page.

 

[MikeTO]

On 8/30/2023 at 10:16 AM, Pauls said:

I can get something similar by switching documents, going to a different page and trying to activate a different text frame on that page. Focus seems to stay on a previously selected text frame.

Update - the new text frame was linked so focus was staying at the story end which was on the previous page.

I took a shaky cam video of the issue today since I can't record the screen directly. Sorry for the bad angle, I couldn't get up to record the screen properly to avoid the glare because my cat was curled up beside me purring and she told me to stay put.

I had only one document open this time so the issue isn't specific to having multiple documents open. I've experienced this issue with many documents, but the document in this video is the special character document I've shared in resources (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/176386-special-characters-in-publisher-quick-reference-chart/) - I'm changing its images from embedded to linked today.

The last things I did before Publisher got stuck were:

1. Replace image
2. Link that image
3. Clear selection

There are three pages in this document and each has a few dozen pinned inline images. I selected a pinned image to manipulate with the Move tool and then after replacing and linking it I must have clicked somewhere else on the screen to clear selection when it got stuck. The symptoms of being stuck were:

• Clicking the text frame or pinned images shows the layer as selected in Layers but the object doesn't have size handles
• Scrolling to another page does not change the current page
• Clicking the text frame or pinned images on another page doesn't select them in Layers or on the page
• Double clicking to place the cursor doesn't switch tools or place the cursor

Again this is easy to resolve, just change tools manually, change apps, open a window, but this is happening all the time.

I wonder if it's related to working with pinned images, or maybe even only with inline images. I've been working with inline images non-stop since the problem started. I always use inline images but not as frequently as in the past couple of weeks.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by MikeTO
Added missing video

[Hangman]

33 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I took a shaky cam video of the issue today since I can't record the screen directly.

Hi @MikeTO, was the upload intended to be the shaky cam video, I'm only seeing a still.

[MikeTO]

57 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @MikeTO, was the upload intended to be the shaky cam video, I'm only seeing a still.

Fixed, thanks.

[Hangman]

Hi @MikeTO,

There are a couple of 'odd' things shown in your screen recording...

1. Throughout the screen recording the status bar shows 'Mouse over an object to get measurements.'
    
2. The second oddity is after you scroll up and start selecting objects on Page 2 (15 secs), selecting the first item, 'Espace idéographique*†  U+3000', shows a 'Clear Selection' in the History panel even though you 'appear' to be selecting the image. Likewise, you also don't see a 'Set current page' in the History panel which you would expect when selecting the object on Page 2.

The only way I can replicate the behaviour you're seeing is by holding Cmd Shift when the Move tool is selected while mouse-clicking objects which would also explain why you're seeing measurements between selected items on the page throughout. This also shows the same status bar message.

Is it possible that somewhere along the line this is a result of a keyboard shortcut setting getting messed up when updating to 2.2.0.1971, which I recall you mentioned previously?

Move Tool with Cmd Shift Key Selected

[MikeTO]

23 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Throughout the screen recording the status bar shows 'Mouse over an object to get measurements. Click on an object to select it.'

It almost looks as though you have 'Show snapping candidates' enabled and 'Auto Select' set to Groups in the context toolbar but I take it that's not the case.

That status bar prompt is odd and hopefully a good clue for Serif. Thanks!

I have Show Snapping Candidates off and have Auto Select set to Default.

[Hangman]

6 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

That status bar prompt is odd and hopefully a good clue for Serif. Thanks!

I have Show Snapping Candidates off and have Auto Select set to Default.

Hi @MikeTO,

I've just edited my previous post, I can replicate the behaviour and have uploaded a screen recording...

[MikeTO]

@Hangman Thanks for figuring out that it's related to Cmd.

My beta shortcuts are fixed, I reset to defaults and recreated them manually. But there has to be some connection.

While I use Cmd shortcuts all the time I wasn't doing things today that would have required it to be pressed.

[Hangman]

@MikeTO,

I do think there is possibly something odd going on in general, today I was suddenly faced with a tab key issue, using the tab key in a table moved the selection to the previous cell instead of the next cell and using the tab key in a text frame with tab stops totally ignored the tab stops and simply tabbed to the right of the text frame. There was no issue in 2.1.1.

I ended up having to reset the keyboard shortcuts to the Serif defaults again which remedied the issue. Even though it's a bit of a pain, I wonder if doing another Serif Defaults reset is worth a go to see if it fixes the issue you're seeing.

[Hangman]

@MikeTO,

Here's something else odd that's happening...

While holding the Cmd key and selecting objects using the Move tool, when scrolling up to Page two (still holding the Cmd key) outlines of the text on Page three are shown on Page 2 when hovering over the inline text... 🤔

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

I do think there is possibly something odd going on in general, today I was suddenly faced with a tab key issue, using the tab key in a table moved the selection to the previous cell instead of the next cell and using the tab key in a text frame with tab stops totally ignored the tab stops and simply tabbed to the right of the text frame. There was no issue in 2.1.1.

I ended up having to reset the keyboard shortcuts to the Serif defaults again which remedied the issue. Even though it's a bit of a pain, I wonder if doing another Serif Defaults reset is worth a go to see if it fixes the issue you're seeing.

Tab was one of the shortcuts that was messed up in the previous beta so resetting to defaults would definitely fix that issue. But I have just reset my shortcuts so I'm okay.

 

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

But I have just reset my shortcuts so I'm okay.

Did that make any difference or was that prior to this particular issue…

[Sean P]

On 8/31/2023 at 2:34 PM, MikeTO said:

I took a shaky cam video of the issue today since I can't record the screen directly. Sorry for the bad angle, I couldn't get up to record the screen properly to avoid the glare because my cat was curled up beside me purring and she told me to stay put.

I had only one document open this time so the issue isn't specific to having multiple documents open. I've experienced this issue with many documents, but the document in this video is the special character document I've shared in resources (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/176386-special-characters-in-publisher-quick-reference-chart/) - I'm changing its images from embedded to linked today.

The last things I did before Publisher got stuck were:

1. Replace image
2. Link that image
3. Clear selection

There are three pages in this document and each has a few dozen pinned inline images. I selected a pinned image to manipulate with the Move tool and then after replacing and linking it I must have clicked somewhere else on the screen to clear selection when it got stuck. The symptoms of being stuck were:

• Clicking the text frame or pinned images shows the layer as selected in Layers but the object doesn't have size handles
• Scrolling to another page does not change the current page
• Clicking the text frame or pinned images on another page doesn't select them in Layers or on the page
• Double clicking to place the cursor doesn't switch tools or place the cursor

Again this is easy to resolve, just change tools manually, change apps, open a window, but this is happening all the time.

I wonder if it's related to working with pinned images, or maybe even only with inline images. I've been working with inline images non-stop since the problem started. I always use inline images but not as frequently as in the past couple of weeks.

 

IMG_4223.mov 24.04 MB · 8 downloads  

 

Thanks for the video and also for Hangman for the mention of 'Mouse over an object to get measurements.'. I believe what is happening is that this is getting stuck enabled, so effectively you're stuck in this mode when clicking objects - it is just continuously selecting the pinned objects inside the text frame.
See attached video. Does this seem to tie in with what you're seeing Mike?

 

On 8/31/2023 at 7:55 PM, Hangman said:

@MikeTO,

Here's something else odd that's happening...

While holding the Cmd key and selecting objects using the Move tool, when scrolling up to Page two (still holding the Cmd key) outlines of the text on Page three are shown on Page 2 when hovering over the inline text... 🤔

 

I can also reproduce this as well. That is a tad easier to reproduce. I will also get this logged.