Clicking outside a selection to deselect

[mxm]

I really like Affinity product. I’ve done my best to make sure the suggestion I want to make is not already made for V2 products. 
 

I would like to suggest, when a selection is made using any selecting tool, that it is possible to click (or tap) anywhere to deselect rather than always using the keyboard shortcut. It could be an option in the settings. The people who want to enable it would be able to do it and those who are not interested in that feature could disable it. 

Thank Affinity!

Respectfully,

mxm

[Hangman]

Hi @mxm and welcome to the forums,

I may be misunderstanding what you're asking for here but simply clicking a blank section of the canvas or page with a selection tool selected should deselect your selection without the need for a keyboard shortcut...

[GarryP]

 @mxm
Are you talking about layer selection or pixel selection?
Also, which Affinity application(s) are you referring to?

Since you mention “any selection tool” (my emphasis) I am going to assume that you mean pixel selection (either in Photo, or the Photo Persona or Publisher, or the Pixel Persona of Designer) as there are more pixel selection tools than layer selection tools.

With the pixel selection tools, the functionality you want is already there, as mentioned by Hangman above: click on an area outside of the current pixel selection and the pixel selection will be deselected. This should happen no matter which Mode the pixel selection tool is in.

If none of the responses in this thread have covered the issue you have brought up then you might need to show us a screen recording of what you are trying to do so we can understand it better.

[Hangman]

28 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Are you talking about layer selection or pixel selection?

Pixel selection makes far more sense... I still had my vector hat on...

[GarryP]

I thought they might be selecting layers until I re-read the text and noticed that they said “any selection tool” which kinda gave me the idea that it might be pixel selection instead.

Once we find out what they’re doing we will have a better idea of where to go next.

[Hangman]

Your logic makes far more sense in conjunction with the need to use a keyboard shortcut to deselect a selection... it's not something I've considered before as I tend to use the esc key to deselect...

[Gripsholm Lion]

That would be OK if was an opt-in preference, as you have suggested.

I long ago used an image editor which worked in this way by default. The UX team probably thought that it was a super idea, but losing a complex selection with one accidental tap of a touchpad is not amusing even the first time, I can tell you.

 

10 hours ago, Hangman said:

I still had my vector hat on

One size fits all... 😁

[mxm]

Hi and thank you for your answers. Thank you Hangman for your welcome!

Maybe I wasn't clear enough with my first message, but I will try to be clearer this time.  English is not my first language. 🤭

I will try to contextualize my suggestion.

Let's imagine that in the Affinity Photo software, I have opened an image file and it is, let's say, a photograph of a tree with some landscape in the background.

Let's say I want to select an element of the photograph using the lasso. Okay, so, I make my selection and I now see the black and white line wandering around what I selected.

If I want to deselect what I have just done, I have no other choice, in my experience, than to do CTRL/CMD+D. When I used Photoshop, I could just click anywhere and the selection would disappear.

So, I propose that this way of deselecting, i.e. by clicking elsewhere, be offered in the software's personalization settings. This could be a checkbox like: "Allow deselection on click." This would allow those who prefer to use CTRL or CMD + D at all times to continue doing so and those, like me, who prefer to click to deselect could also keep their workflow smoother.

Thanks a lot! 🙂

 

Edited January 26 by mxm
I made a typing error.

[GarryP]

Unless I have totally misunderstood what you have written, the existing functionality already lets you do what you want.

See my attached video where I make a selection with the Freehand Selection Tool to make a pixel selection and then click somewhere which isn’t part of the selection to cancel the pixel selection.

The same 'deselection by clicking outside of the selection' technique can be achieved in all of the Selection Tools that I have tried.

Edit: The same 'deselection by clicking outside of the selection' technique can be achieved in most of the Selection Tools except the Selection Brush Tool and the Flood Select Tool and the difference comes about because of how those particular tools work.

If that’s not working for you then we will need to see a video of what you are doing.

Edited January 26 by GarryP
Added clarification.

[Hangman]

I think the only tool that can't be deselected by clicking elsewhere is the 'Selection Brush tool' which does require a keyboard shortcut, either Cmd (Ctrl) D or Esc...

[GarryP]

That would make sense because of the way that tool works, that and the Flood Select Tool.

I’ve amended my earlier post to mention these.

[mxm]

Thanks for your help. Maybe I didn't clicked on the appropriate selecting mode.🫢

 

Thank you for the video!

 

mxm

 

[v_kyr]

17 hours ago, mxm said:

If I want to deselect what I have just done, I have no other choice, in my experience, than to do CTRL/CMD+D. When I used Photoshop, I could just click anywhere and the selection would disappear.

Which would be actually bad for a layered image and taking the made selection over for/to another layer (as one can do now), as you would then have to fiddle around with additional options for keeping the selection in taking it automatically over at all until dismissed etc.

Personally I'm more used to the actual Affinity way, so I'm not that in favor to offer & do everything like PS here (...mouse & shortcut handlings etc.), just because many new to Affinity people are coming or migrating over from PS.

I mean hey this is Affinity and not Adobe software or a 1:1 clone of that. - Further and which is my main concern here is, dealing with all these little differences to PS/AI/ID and adapting them then (...even if optional customizable via settings) will cost programming time and efforts, which will be better spend into all the bug fixings and developing other more important missing main app features. And maybe no need to say, but all such adaptions will then again probably introduce new bugs, so the actual bug list will get long and longer than it even yet is. Therefore, people can better spend time to learn and internalize the Affinity software in the same way as they have previously done with Adobe software.