Allow dragging document window when UI is off

[PaoloT]

Hi,

When the UI is hidden (after pressing Tab), one can no longer drag the document window around.

It would be very useful if this was possible, maybe by grabbing it from any part of the window outside of the page, or even by a small area next to the border.

Paolo

 

[loukash]

1 hour ago, PaoloT said:

one can no longer drag the document window around

On Mac, one can: Use the status bar at the bottom!

[Pšenda]

4 minutes ago, loukash said:

On Mac, one can: Use the status bar at the bottom!

On Win use window title bar.

[walt.farrell]

Seems to work OK for me, at least on Windows. Can you provide more details?

 

 

[PaoloT]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

On Mac, one can: Use the status bar at the bottom!

Only, I can't seem to see a status bar when the UI is hidden.

But it's a bug. This seems to happen when you open a document with the UI already hidden.

I'm sure it also happened when I explicitly hid the UI, but can't reproduce it.

 

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Can you provide more details?

Sure, here it is! No status bar on sight!

If I make the UI reappear, and then hide it again, the status bar is there again. At least, this time.

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

But it's a bug. This seems to happen when you open a document with the UI already hidden.

Ah, good catch. Yes, that smells like a bug.
This fix is easy though: simply temporarily show and hide the UI, and the status bar will stay.

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

But it's a bug. This seems to happen when you open a document with the UI already hidden.

I'm sure it also happened when I explicitly hid the UI, but can't reproduce it.

Are you perhaps experiencing the situation where you hid the UI, and then rather than restoring it (Tab again), you brought parts of it back piecemeal using the View menu? You can restore everything except the Status Bar that way. The Status Bar only hides or shows by hiding/restoring the UI using View > Toggle UI (or Tab).

[PaoloT]

45 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Are you perhaps experiencing the situation where you hid the UI, and then rather than restoring it (Tab again), you brought parts of it back piecemeal using the View menu?

I've not tried it recently. Not with the current beta, no.

Paolo

 

[loukash]

59 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Are you perhaps experiencing the situation where you hid the UI, and then rather than restoring it (Tab again), you brought parts of it back piecemeal using the View menu?

I've only toggled the whole UI, and on opening another document while the UI was hidden, the status bar disappeared.
It's a bug, the status bar should never disappear as long as there's no command to turn it on/off.
Same in 2.4 beta.

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, loukash said:

Same in 2.4 beta.

It's been that way forever. Toggle UI hides or restores the Status Bar with everything else, and nothing else affects its visibility.

[loukash]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

It's been that way forever.

Yeah, could well be. I rarely make use of the Toggle UI command. In fact, years ago I've changed the shortcut to cmd-option-tab because it always got in my way. The tab key alone is too important to be wasted on this…  

[PaoloT]

21 minutes ago, loukash said:

the status bar should never disappear

Well, the Toggle UI command is intended to remove all the UI elements, and leave the document alone on the display, with no distracting elements. I would say that the status bar should disappear when pressing Tab, and there should be a command dedicated to showing/hiding the status bar alone.

If this is fixed this way (as I hope), I will again miss a way to move the document window when the UI is hidden.

Paolo

 

[loukash]

4 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

I would say that the status bar should disappear when pressing Tab

Not when there's no other UI element on MacOS to grab the window and move it.
The status bar is literally the "last straw" in such a scenario.

[PaoloT]

11 minutes ago, loukash said:

The tab key alone is too important to be wasted on this

It's something that is embedded in all Photoshop users. All considered, if nothing is selected in Publisher, the Tab key is left free from any other use. And then, you can reassign it to something more old-fashioned, like a function key.

Paolo

 

[loukash]

Just now, PaoloT said:

It's something that is embedded in all Photoshop users.

And boy how I hated it!  

[PaoloT]

1 minute ago, loukash said:

The staus bar is literally the "last straw" in such a scenario.

I don't remember if you are on a Mac or Windows, but the most recent versions of macOS tend to allow moving a window by grabbing it in any space free of elements near the border. This is something that would work perfectly fine in the Affinity apps.

Paolo

 

[PaoloT]

4 minutes ago, loukash said:

And boy how I hated it!

What do you need the Tab key for, when you have the Spacebar to align your text??? 😁

 

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

the most recent versions of macOS tend to allow moving a window by grabbing it in any space free of elements near the border.

If the apps follow Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, yes. 
Affinity doesn't.

7 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

What do you need the Tab key for, when you have the Spacebar??? 😁

Well, see above, in fact: In apps that actually follow Apple's H.I.G., I can tab between UI elements, changing focus without having to point and click. It's a usability and accessibility issue. The tab key has always served a key role on MacOS in this context.
And this is not that easy in the Affinity UI mess. Although there are ways and workarounds, e.g. via Keyboard Maestro macros and System Events UI scripting. I've posted quite a few such examples and experiments in the past here.

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

What do you need the Tab key for, when you have the Spacebar to align your text??? 😁

Uh, now I got your joke. You've edited your post after I've already quoted it…  

[Dan C]

16 hours ago, PaoloT said:

But it's a bug. This seems to happen when you open a document with the UI already hidden.

Thanks for your report - I can confirm I've been able to replicate this here on macOS and I'm getting it logged with our team now

I'm also separately logging the platform difference between Windows and macOS, as when 'Toggling UI', macOS retains the Status Bar and Windows does not - though this might be an intentional decision.

I hope this helps!

[PaoloT]

10 hours ago, Dan C said:

when 'Toggling UI', macOS retains the Status Bar and Windows does not

Really hoping that an option to select the behavior is introduced. But if it can't, I hope the status bar disappears together with all the other elements. And an alternative way to drag windows is introduced.

Paolo

 

[loukash]

9 hours ago, PaoloT said:

I hope the status bar disappears together with all the other elements. And an alternative way to drag windows is introduced.

Agreed. On Mac, the top window bar with the "traffic lights" buttons should never fully disappear. In some apps on current MacOS where a window looks borderless, the top window bar at least appears on hover.