Bug - Numeric values behaviour

[JariH]

macOS v13.6.3

Affinity Designer v2.3.1

 

What's the difference here?

  

The first number box is highlighted like I use in any other software. Second has been selected with a cursor and enter has been pressed.

Both can be adjusted with the keyboard's arrow up and down keys, but the highlighted value behaves illogically.

When adjusting sub-values keeping Alt key pressed:

• Cannot always adjust sub-values at all.
• Strange limits to values +-0,7 and +-0,3 (pixel, millimetre, angle).
• Locked aspect ratio in the Transform menu breaks apart.

Is it required to press enter before adjusting any numeric values with arrow keys? To me, this is an unnecessary extra step that stops my workflow.

[Hangman]

Hi @JariH,

I have to say that I'm not seeing the same behaviour on Monterey so I'm unsure if this is specific to Ventura.

This is what I see when using both the Alt and Shift Keys...

[loukash]

1 hour ago, JariH said:

When adjusting sub-values keeping Alt key pressed:

• Cannot always adjust sub-values at all.
• Strange limits to values +-0,7 and +-0,3 (pixel, millimetre, angle).
• Locked aspect ratio in the Transform menu breaks apart.

This could be related to comma as decimal separator.
I remember there were similar issues in the past. Usually I always use a period as a separator (the Swiss standard), but e.g. due to bugs in other apps on MacOS El Capitan I had to change it to comma globally. That has at times caused various conflicts in Affinity v1 as well, although I think they have been mostly fixed in the meantime.
On Ventura, however, period as separator works fine for me, so I'm not seeing anything like this.

1 hour ago, JariH said:

Is it required to press enter before adjusting any numeric values with arrow keys? To me, this is an unnecessary extra step that stops my workflow.

To me, this all feels like a feature, not a bug:

• A) click inside the field to select the value or edit freely by using the L/R arrow keys to navigate as text, or manually overwrite units, type expressions etc.
• B) click outside the field to select the field frame, L/R arrow keys will now only change values but not affect the text content; you can still start to type and automatically enter mode A)
• press Return/Enter while the field frame is selected to highlight the field text content, i.e. again entering mode A)
• to commit a field while retaining keyboard focus on the Transform panel, press the Tab key to simply move to the next field
• to commit everything and return keyboard focus onto canvas, press Return/Enter while in mode A)

Looks pretty logical and well thought out to me.
Unlike many other input fields instances in the Affinity UI, that is…
Still not "perfect" though, as unfortunately not all elements in the Transform panel are tabable, only the input fields.

[JariH]

Hangman & loukash, thanks for the input

 

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

This is what I see when using both the Alt and Shift Keys...

I'm guessing you navigated to the value box with a Tab key? Select the value directly with a cursor to highlight the value. Mine gets messed...

 

 

2 hours ago, loukash said:

This could be related to comma as decimal separator.

That would be a bummer since a comma is a standard separator in Nordic numerals. Unfortunately, using a period is not an option.

 

Quote

 

B) click outside the field to select the field frame

 

Ha! You have to click the number field title to activate the field frame. "Interesting behaviour" 🤨

Clicking a value inside a box and adjusting the value with an arrow key should be possible without extra user actions. I don't know any other software where this does not work (Adobe, Apple, Blender, etc...). To me, this is poor UI implementation. 

PS. Why are my inserted videos displayed so huge? 😜

[Hangman]

7 minutes ago, JariH said:

I'm guessing you navigated to the value box with a Tab key? Select the value directly with a cursor to highlight the value. Mine gets messed...

In the screen recording, I did indeed navigate to the value box using the Tab key, though I've just checked it without doing so by selecting the Width or Height Box directly (without tabbing to it) and for me, I see the same result...

I did check various macOS setting options but I couldn't find anything which changed this behaviour so I'm unsure why we are seeing differing behaviour at the moment...

[JariH]

16 minutes ago, Hangman said:

for me, I see the same result...

Thanks,

That is really interesting. Maybe it's the period vs. comma thing?

[Hangman]

20 minutes ago, JariH said:

Ha! You have to click the number field title to activate the field frame. "Interesting behaviour" 🤨

Clicking a value inside a box and adjusting the value with an arrow key should be possible without extra user actions. I don't know any other software where this does not work (Adobe, Apple, Blender, etc...). To me, this is poor UI implementation. 

• Clicking the field label will make the field active, this is because you can click-drag the label horizontally to change the value in the respective field in the transform panel, though note that the modifier keys have no effect here, click-dragging the field label will change the value in the box in single integer increments...

Clicking a value inside a text entry box acts like a toggle...

• Click once in the width or height box and it will highlight the value within the box allowing you to either type a new value which will be accepted via either the enter or tab key or to use the Alt or Shift key to increment the value using different increments...
   
• Click once in the width or height box and it will highlight the value within the box, then hitting enter will toggle between highlighting the value in the box or highlighting the box but both allow the value to be changed using the arrow keys along with the respective modifier keys...
   
• Using the arrow keys without a modifier will increment the value by single unit integer values...
   
• Using the arrow keys with the Alt modifier will change the value by 0.1 unit value increments...
   
• Using the arrow keys with the Shift modifier will change the value by 10 unit value increments...

 

[Hangman]

3 minutes ago, JariH said:

That is really interesting. Maybe it's the period vs. comma thing?

That is quite possible, I'll test and report back...

[loukash]

14 minutes ago, JariH said:

Maybe it's the period vs. comma thing?

Looking at you screencast, I suspect so.
Another factor often was the Affinity language setting in Preferences/Settings → General → Language. Some of these bugs would manifest if this was set to Default, others if it was set to any other available language. (For the record, I'm always intentionally using English US, but e.g. my system units, dates etc. are set to Switzerland.)

[JariH]

2 minutes ago, loukash said:

Looking at you screencast, I suspect so.
Another factor often was the Affinity language setting in Preferences/Settings → General → Language. Some of these bugs would manifest if this was set to Default, others if it was set to any other available language. (For the record, I'm always intentionally using English US, but e.g. my system units, dates etc. are set to Switzerland.)

I did change the language earlier from the default, but that does not have any effect. Hope Affinity will have a fix for this soon.

[loukash]

Just now, JariH said:

that does not have any effect

The earlier bugs of this kind would usually manifest when using an odd combination of MacOS language and units settings together with a specific Affinity language setting. That's probably why they may have been often overlooked during the beta testing, because there are so many variables.

(Speaking of which, particularly the Swiss number formats on Mac were always buggy on system level, going as far back as at least System 7, i.e. early 1990s! Now on Ventura, I must say that they finally behave mostly OK, for the first time in literally decades…)

[loukash]

4 minutes ago, loukash said:

using an odd combination of MacOS language and units settings together with a specific Affinity language setting

In other words, temporarily changing everything incl. MacOS system settings to English UK should work flawlessly in that particular regard. After all, Serif are located in the UK…  
From there, change back to your usual settings one by one until you find the culprit that causes it.