ALT F4 Closes Panels. It Should Only Close the App.

[_Th]

Application?
All (Designer/Photo/Publisher)

Latest Version?
Yes (2.3.0.2165)

Reproducible?
Yes

Happen for New Document?
Yes

OS?
Windows 11 (23H2) 10.0.22631, 11th Gen i7, 16GB RAM

Hardware Acceleration?
On

What Happens?
If the last thing you've 'touched' is any detached/floating panel, the default Windows keyboard shortcut to close a program, ALT F4, closes the panel instead.

What's Expected?
ALT-F4 should *only* close the program, never a panel or just a document.

To Reproduce?
Create new document. Have at least one panel detached/floating. Click on that panel. Type ALT + F4

Unusual Hardware?
None

Work Before?
I believe this existed in v1.x

Recent Changes?
None

Other?
I mistakenly posted this originally under Feedback. I see that as the post author, I can hide that. Not sure if that's preferred or not. (Not trying to double post an issue. Rather, posting here as a bug report as suggested.)

[Bit Disappointed]

I was curious, so I asked:

Quote

Your puzzlement is understandable. Normally, the ALT + F4 keyboard shortcut is handled at a global level in Windows applications to close the active window. If ALT + F4 only closes a panel in your program, one of the following things might have occurred in the program's design:

• Override of Standard Behaviour: The programmer might have overridden the standard behaviour associated with ALT + F4. In Windows applications, keyboard events can be captured and handled using event handling mechanisms. If the programmer has implemented a custom event handler for ALT + F4 at the panel level, it could override the standard action, which is to close the entire application.
• Error in Event Propagation: Normally, when a keyboard event like ALT + F4 is captured by a subordinate element (such as a panel), if it is not specifically handled at that level, it should 'bubble up' through the application's control hierarchy until it reaches a level where it can be handled (typically at the application level). If there is an error in this propagation, the event might get 'caught' and handled at a lower level without reaching the application level.
• Incorrect Event Binding: If the programmer has accidentally bound the ALT + F4 shortcut to a function that closes the active panel, this would explain the observed behaviour. This could be a simple coding mistake where a global shortcut was unintentionally made local.

To fix the issue, the programmer should:

• Ensure that the ALT + F4 shortcut is not overridden at the panel level.
• Review the event propagation logic to ensure that events not handled at lower levels correctly reach up to the application level.
• Double-check event bindings to ensure that ALT + F4 is correctly configured to close the entire application and not just a single panel.

It's important to note that this issue can be quite complex depending on how the application is structured and what frameworks or libraries are used.

📐 🤙🏻

[NathanC]

Hi @_Th,

I've now logged this with the developers. For reference this panel close behaviour was the same in V1.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "ALT + F4 does not close the app if a studio panel/window is actively selected" (REF: AF-1485) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.4.0.2279".
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.

[_Th]

Fix confirmed, working as expected in all betas v. 2.4.0.2279

Thanks to the Serif dev team for getting this resolved.

Happiness.