Objects resized to wrong direction

[ygoe]

Hello,

after using Affinity Designer for a while (a few hours non-stop), it gets confused about object resizing directions. I set the anchor of an unrotated rectangle to top-left and enter a new width value. Normally, it would move its right edge and keep the left edge fixed. But in the bug situation, it would keep the right edge fixed and move the left edge to match the width.

I just tried it and restarted the application and redid the exact same steps, then it worked.

Also, the anchor selection (the 9 buttons in the Transform panel next to the X/Y/W/H fields) may get confused after extended usage. Then it won't match the actual behaviour anymore. Also, the rotation centre marker is displayed wrong then.

Altogether, that thing really isn't stable. I guess the UI is maintained independently from its internal state and can get out of sync. Other additional problems may exist. I don't know enough about the implementation to analyse this further. It just appears to be more or less random.

Steps to reproduce:

Use the application to edit technical drawings for a few hours in a row. Then observe carefully.

Affinity Designer 2.4.2 (all previous versions also affected) on Windows 11 (10 also).

[walt.farrell]

It might be interesting, if you ever recreate this, to Save the .afdesign file and see if that file behaves the same way after you restart the application. 

 

[ygoe]

Like I said, it doesn't. Before the restart the bug occurred, after the restart everything worked as expected. And I did save the file because I didn't want to lose my changes. So the behaviour has changed through the restart. Classic case of runtime confusion.

[ygoe]

Again. It happens all the time. So annoying because it makes those size entry fields useless if they resize objects in other directions than intended!

[ygoe]

Oh, this time it's persistent! Anchor on the left side, increasing the width, makes the rectangle grow to the left.

Hm, it only happens when selecting two rectangles. Selecting and resizing each of them separately works fine (both are not rotated), but not both of them together. That goes in the reverse direction. Very strange. I don't understand what AD is thinking there.

[bbrother]

It's interesting what you write ygoe.
So far I haven't noticed that there is such a problem.
Maybe my sessions with the program are too short. I take frequent breaks to take care of my eyesight.
But considering what you write, I'll try to take a look at it if I have the opportunity.

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, ygoe said:

Oh, this time it's persistent! Anchor on the left side, increasing the width, makes the rectangle grow to the left.

Hm, it only happens when selecting two rectangles. Selecting and resizing each of them separately works fine (both are not rotated), but not both of them together. That goes in the reverse direction. Very strange. I don't understand what AD is thinking there.

We really need a file where this occours. Cannot reproduce from scratch.

Whicht settings do you have active for the move tool (e.g. transfor seperately)?

Did you cycle bounding box (by accidentially press period key ".")? This can cause the behavior if box is rotated 180 degree and bounding box is cycled.

[ygoe]

55 minutes ago, bbrother said:

Maybe my sessions with the program are too short. I take frequent breaks to take care of my eyesight.

You can do, just leave the program open during your break.

 

7 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

We really need a file where this occours. Cannot reproduce from scratch.

Whicht settings do you have activae for the move tool (e.g. transfor seperately)?

Did you cycle bounding box (by accidentially press point key ".")? This can cause the behavior if box is rotated 180 degree and bounding box is cycled.

I wouldn't want to publish that file, can I send it to devs privately?

Are there settings for the move tool? I'm not talking about dragging objects with the mouse. I'm entering their size directly in the number input boxes:

I don't think I pressed the "." key. Would the effect be visible at that rotation handle? It's usually sticking out from the top edge (as in the next image). And that 9-button-thing normally has its bright button in the top-left position. When objects are rotated (in 90° steps), both look different. That's when I get totally confused because I never know if it has its own perspective (and I need to turn my head around) or the screen perspective (and I don't need to think). But when everything is in its normal position, I'd expect it to work properly.

[NotMyFault]

When you cycle the selection box it will 100% produce the symptoms you described. The anchor points will reset to 0degree even if layer is rotated, just press the . Key again, it will cycle. If nothing happens it was not cycled. Otherwise the layer selection box handles and rotation value in transform panel will change.

[ygoe]

I tried to use the "." key and it has some effect. But I don't understand it. That key just seems to fix things that appear broken otherwise. Why do I need to press that key if it could always be pressed automatically?

[NotMyFault]

The symptoms are 100% reproducible by rotating a layer by 180 degree and then using cycle selection box.

• Cycle selection box can be activated by pressing . Key or menu.
• Layer rotation can be done by multiple ways, transform panel, mouse, several menu functions like swap how/vert, as part of a group layer etc.

If you want to find out how this was triggered, you could inspect the history panel while the file is still open, or even for saved files if saved with history.

Otherwise it is probably impossible to reproduce how this was caused.

I would advise to always save your files with history. This will allow to analyze what caused the issue if it re-occours.

[ygoe]

BTW, is there a way I can reset all rotations and mirroring from an object without changing its appearance? Like I have a rectangle that was rotated by 90° because it was convenient when I created it, but now I want the width and height not to be swapped anymore. Sometimes I also have horizontal lines but rotated by 180° for no reason. I could rotate it back and resize and realign manually. But I guess the software would also be able to do that. I would want to apply that on almost all objects. Maybe anything that isn't at a 90° grid can be excluded automatically, that would be great!

[Alfred]

18 minutes ago, ygoe said:

BTW, is there a way I can reset all rotations and mirroring from an object without changing its appearance?

Select the object, go to the Layer menu and choose ‘Geometry > Add’ (or instead of going to the Layer menu, click on the ‘Add’ button in the Geometry section of the main toolbar). The selected object will be Boolean added to itself, maintaining its shape and orientation but resetting its rotation to 0°.

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Select the object, go to the Layer menu and choose ‘Geometry > Add’ (or instead of going to the Layer menu, click on the ‘Add’ button in the Geometry section of the main toolbar). The selected object will be Boolean added to itself, maintaining its shape and orientation but resetting its rotation to 0°.

In the case of a Rectangle, though, it will no longer be a Rectangle but a Curve (Curves?) object. But I don't think there's anything else you can do.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In the case of a Rectangle, though, it will no longer be a Rectangle but a Curve (Curves?) object.

It will be a Curve object rather than a Curves object, because it will consist of a single closed path.

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But I don't think there's anything else you can do.

Neither do I, for what it’s worth.

[NotMyFault]

24 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Select the object, go to the Layer menu and choose ‘Geometry > Add’ (or instead of going to the Layer menu, click on the ‘Add’ button in the Geometry section of the main toolbar). The selected object will be Boolean added to itself, maintaining its shape and orientation but resetting its rotation to 0°.

Set selection box? Will keep shape / no convert to curve.

 

[Alfred]

30 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But I don't think there's anything else you can do.

 

25 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Neither do I, for what it’s worth.

@NotMyFault has pointed the way:

12 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Set selection box? Will keep shape / no convert to curve.

 

 

[Hangman]

15 hours ago, Alfred said:

Select the object, go to the Layer menu and choose ‘Geometry > Add’ (or instead of going to the Layer menu, click on the ‘Add’ button in the Geometry section of the main toolbar). The selected object will be Boolean added to itself, maintaining its shape and orientation but resetting its rotation to 0°.

This doesn't work in v2 on Mac...

[Hangman]

14 hours ago, NotMyFault said:

Set selection box? Will keep shape / no convert to curve.

But you can't set the selection box for objects rotated by 90°, 180° or 270° so that won't work for @ygoe's example...

[ygoe]

That Ctrl+. command is there in the menu but disabled, so it doesn't work as described. But it sounds like it would be the solution. How can I enable it?

I have a rectangle that's rotated by 90° CW so the rotation handle is sticking out to the right side. Its width and height do not match the actual appearance, they're reversed. Pressing . fixes the input fields, but only as long as the rectangle is selected. Unselecting and selecting again reverts to the reversed fields. Ctrl+. has no effect, the menu command is disabled.

[Hangman]

17 minutes ago, ygoe said:

That Ctrl+. command is there in the menu but disabled, so it doesn't work as described. But it sounds like it would be the solution. How can I enable it?

This has been confirmed as expected behaviour for objects rotated by 90°, 180° or 270°, this was the feedback from the developers...

Quote

"Because, even though the box ‘points’ a different direction, it’s the same box."

 

17 minutes ago, ygoe said:

I have a rectangle that's rotated by 90° CW so the rotation handle is sticking out to the right side. Its width and height do not match the actual appearance, they're reversed.

This is currently also expected behaviour, see this thread...

Based on @Alfred's comment above on Windows it should be possible to select the object and then use Layer > Geometry > Add or select the Add Boolean in the context toolbar to reset the Bounding Box for Shapes, but those shapes will be converted to Curve layers...

On Mac, this no longer works in v2 and it doesn't work for strokes in v1 or v2, in fact on Mac using the Add Boolean on a stroke in v2 deletes the stroke completely, I'm not sure what it does on Windows...

[ygoe]

So there's a command to switch that box and another one to commit the changes. The first does its changes but the second denies to commit them in certain cases (90° steps). That seems wrong to me.

[Hangman]

1 minute ago, ygoe said:

So there's a command to switch that box and another one to commit the changes. The first does its changes but the second denies to commit them in certain cases (90° steps). That seems wrong to me.

This was the point I was questioning in the linked post because it felt wrong to me as well but the view of the developers is as per the response in the previous post...

For shapes did you try the Add Boolean option, I'm curious to know if that works in v2 on Windows since even though it works in v1 it no longer works in v2 on Mac...

[ygoe]

No, the Add operation changes the rectangle to a curve but doesn't even touch its rotation. So it's completely useless in this case. 1 disadvantage, 0 advantages.

[Alfred]

28 minutes ago, Hangman said:

For shapes did you try the Add Boolean option, I'm curious to know if that works in v2 on Windows since even though it works in v1 it no longer works in v2 on Mac...

 

4 minutes ago, ygoe said:

No, the Add operation changes the rectangle to a curve but doesn't even touch its rotation. So it's completely useless in this case. 1 disadvantage, 0 advantages.

Confirmed here. And it doesn’t work in version 2 on iPadOS, either.