Suggestion: Prevent Selected Tool from Activating on App Focus

[Dan R]

I have been using Affinity for about a year now after jumping ship from Adobe. Overall I love the apps and have not had issues learning new workflows. However, there is one item that is constantly interrupting things for me.

I am a front-end developer and very frequently switch between apps while working. I normally keep Designer or Photo open, zooming in and out for reference then switching to another app and back. When an Affinity app comes into focus by clicking on the canvas the current tool activates at the same time. As far as I am aware these are the only apps that behave in this manner. I'm using macOS, not sure if this behavior is cross platform.

For example if I have the zoom tool selected then click to my text editor, when I click on the cavas in an Affinity app it will both focus on the app and zoom in a level. It sounds so minor, but when working it gets infuriating needing to constantly make adjustments to get me back to where I was.

[debraspicher]

Great suggestion. It depends on the application on Windows. Most do activate it seems from a bit of checking but I'm trained to tap/click dead space in an app to get its focus. I use multiple screens when working so it's harder to click the wrong things when refocusing.

Illustrator and Inkscape both behave the way you prefer. Inkscape actually gets a thin white overlay until clicked to reactivate it and it's visible when working on another monitor.

[MikeTO]

@Dan R Welcome to the forums.

This is actually a known bug so Serif is aware of it.