[Accessibility] Form objects with/out mouse

[Andreas Scherer]

A new colleague uses a very simple two-button mouse that does not allow to "click-drag".

Is there a way to create new "Form" objects with some keyboard combination? Any default position and size would be fine; using the "Transform" studio panel to reposition/resize is feasible.

[walt.farrell]

The Drag is simply moving the mouse while keeping the left button clicked. I'm not aware of any mice that can't do that. Are you sure it's not possible?

[Andreas Scherer]

Yes, it's not really a mouse per se; it's a pair of static buttons for left- and right-click, and a joystick for movement. He can't click the button and kick the stick simultaneously. (There are more advanced devices: https://www.gorlo-todt.de/produkte/maussimulatoren/, but we don't have one at hand right now.)

BTW, this is with Affinity V1 on macOS; Windows seems to have a software for "click-and-hold" that works for his needs.

[v_kyr]

16 minutes ago, Andreas Scherer said:

Yes, it's not really a mouse per se; it's a pair of static buttons for left- and right-click, and a joystick for movement.

Does that device come along with a macOS driver of it's own?

Other than that look also after ...

• https://support.apple.com/de-de/guide/mac-help/mh27469/mac

[Andreas Scherer]

No, it only has a bluetooth dongle.

I studied the Apple info today: with a physical keyboard with a numeric pad, I can get things going ('0' for "click-hold" and '.' for "release"). (I did not try a compact keyboard and the character keys.) However, for key strokes my colleague uses the screen keyboard.

[v_kyr]

6 hours ago, Andreas Scherer said:

No, it only has a bluetooth dongle.

Then search after that device (type & model) on the vendors net site (or on the net generally) for related informations, aka if it is and should be compatible with macOS and how to use/setup it there the right way. - Or does it work for other macOS apps right out of the box?

[walt.farrell]

8 hours ago, Andreas Scherer said:

Is there a way to create new "Form" objects with some keyboard combination?

In any case, to get back to your original question, yes you can do it via the keyboard, but only in V2 as far as I know. There's a 30-day free trial you could use to experiment with this function, which is described in the Help: 

https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/CurvesShapes/draw_geometricShapes.html

[thomaso]

7 hours ago, Andreas Scherer said:

Yes, it's not really a mouse per se; it's a pair of static buttons for left- and right-click, and a joystick for movement. He can't click the button and kick the stick simultaneously.

Have you tried the options of "Switch Control" / "Schaltersteuerung"?

"Mit der Schaltersteuerung kannst du ein adaptives Gerät (etwa einen Schalter oder einen Joystick) verwenden, um Text einzugeben, mit Objekten auf dem Bildschirm zu interagieren und deinen Mac zu steuern."

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mh43607/mac

e.g. Mojave:

[Andreas Scherer]

50 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In any case, to get back to your original question, yes you can do it via the keyboard, but only in V2 as far as I know.

Thanks, @walt.farrell, that's exactly what I was looking for! I'll discuss this with my boss.

[Andreas Scherer]

14 hours ago, thomaso said:

Have you tried the options of "Switch Control" / "Schaltersteuerung?

I'll try that later today. Thanks!

[R C-R]

13 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

In any case, to get back to your original question, yes you can do it via the keyboard, but only in V2 as far as I know. There's a 30-day free trial you could use to experiment with this function, which is described in the Help: 

https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/CurvesShapes/draw_geometricShapes.html

Thanks Walt! I have been using V2 since it was released but I never know about the CMD-click feature until you mentioned this.

[walt.farrell]

19 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I have been using V2 since it was released

This was one of the 2.2 enhancements.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/whats-new/

[Andreas Scherer]

My new colleague can begin to explore Affinity Designer V2.2.0 with the new key–mouse combination.

However, now we are looking for a possibility to give the Transform Origin absolute coordinates.

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, Andreas Scherer said:

However, now we are looking for a possibility to give the Transform Origin absolute coordinates.

If you mean that you want to set the Transform Origin of an object to an arbitrary point, so you can use the Point Transform Tool on the object, that requires click & drag, as far as I know.

If you mean something else, please provide more information.

[Andreas Scherer]

23 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

that requires click & drag

I thought so. Time permitting, I'll submit a feature request.

[thomaso]

56 minutes ago, Andreas Scherer said:

I'll submit a feature request

It could be useful to implement a new option to set the Transform Origin not only via the Transform Panel but also to set one common coordinate for multiple selected objects.

And even to set the Origin for object creation, e.g. drawing a line towards a certain Origin coordinate.

Finally the ability to use a custom Origin of one object as a snapping point for other objects.