Changing the brush hardness using a mouse is counterintuitive.

[Eugen]

There are useful shortcuts to adjust brush size and hardness using a mouse. 'Control + Option + Click and drag right/left' adjusts the brush size, while 'Control + Option + Click and drag up/down' adjusts the brush hardness. Although the first shortcut works well, I find the second one counterintuitive. For some reason, to increase ↑ the hardness, you need to drag the pointer down ↓, and to decrease it ↓, you need to drag up ↑. This behavior is confusing and counterintuitive. I'd prefer it to work the other way around, where increasing the hardness would require dragging the mouse up and decreasing it would involve dragging the mouse down.
I wonder if this was done on purpose or if it's some kind of bug. Can it be fixed somehow?

Edited August 12, 2024 by Eugen
typos

[Old Bruce]

Welcome to the forums @Eugen,

Try thinking that Soft is at the top and Hard is at the bottom. 

[Eugen]

7 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Welcome to the forums @Eugen,

Try thinking that Soft is at the top and Hard is at the bottom. 

Then it’s not ‘Hardness’ but ‘Softness.’ That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s counterintuitive. My brain hurts a bit when using this feature. I wish developers would address this issue.

[Old Bruce]

Take an actual graphite pencil and a piece of paper. Draw a line using the pencil with as little pressure as possible, now push down on the pencil as you draw. Which line looks like it was done with a "Hard 'Brush'"? I will wager it is the one that you pushed down on. So I beg to differ about this being counterintuitive. Steering into a skid is counterintuitive. When I think about it, steering into a skid sounds like I should lean into a left hook to lessen the damage to my face. 

[thomaso]

14 hours ago, Eugen said:

Although the first shortcut works well, I find the second one counterintuitive.

Me too. While I am aware it can be an individual impression. Just compare the scroll direction which has been opposite years ago: moving the scrollbar or wheel upwards ↑ moved the page upwards ↑, too, from this aspect quite logical. – Nevertheless it's 'less logical' nowadays: scroll up ↑ page move down ↓. On the other hand there is the scroll direction on a track pad which may appear different and its "natural" setting opposite to the scroll bar/wheel direction.

And maybe users with RTL script even perceive the brush size <-> horizontal movement differently and instead expect a movement to the left for larger brushes?

What I find more confusing, however, is the inaccurate diameters of the two brush preview sizes with reduced hardness. I still have to undo a stroke quite often because the different ellipse radii of the two previews keep confusing me and I don't understand why none of the previewed size pairs simply correspond to the actual brush width painted but deviates more as the hardness decreases.

12 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Take an actual graphite pencil and a piece of paper. Draw a line using the pencil with as little pressure as possible, now push down on the pencil as you draw. Which line looks like it was done with a "Hard 'Brush'"?

No good example. Your comparison demonstrates the issue when hardness and pressure / darkness (… flow, opacity?) get confused: Especially for graphite pencils there is a clear, standardized definition where more hardness means less darkness (+ sharper BUT thinner, smaller strokes, opposite to Affinity, where more hardness means more visual width).

[Alfred]

16 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Just compare the scroll direction which has been opposite years ago: moving the scrollbar or wheel upwards ↑ moved the page upwards ↑, too, from this aspect quite logical. – Nevertheless it's 'less logical' nowadays: scroll up ↑ page move down ↓.

It isn’t less logical if you think of your computer screen as a fixed window through which you’re viewing a taller page. Scrolling the page up will result in the window displaying content which is lower down that page.

[Eugen]

30 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Nevertheless it's 'less logical' nowadays

I don’t see anything wrong with that. In the past, the direction of page movement when scrolling with a mouse was based on the scrollbars, but nowadays, in the age of touchscreens, it’s based on the movement of the page itself. Hardly anyone uses scrollbars anymore. They’re even hidden by default on many devices. Personally I prefer the modern, "natural" way.

[thomaso]

18 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It isn’t less logical if you think of your computer screen as a fixed window through which you’re viewing a taller page. Scrolling the page up will result in the window displaying content which is lower down that page.

I differentiate above between 'logical' vs. 'natural': While the 'logical' thinking may expect an upwards movement causes an upwards movement (!), the 'natural' perception seems to be vice versa. BTW, Apple's macOS uses the term 'natural' for its scroll preference setting:

"Natural scrolling – The contents of a window move in the direction you move your fingers."

… nevertheless, while the page ↑ moves upwards the scroll bar ↓ moves down … and a discussion about 'logic' may restart.

Another comparison maybe the thread of a screw: there are two standardized directions, one with a turn to the right as 'usual'/'normal'/'natural' direction (and of a water faucet, too) and the other with the opposite result for gas devices.

[thomaso]

10 minutes ago, Eugen said:

I don’t see anything wrong with that. In the past, the direction of page movement when scrolling with a mouse was based on the scrollbars, but nowadays, in the age of touchscreens, it’s based on the movement of the page itself.

Also in the past there was no technical need to have a scroll bar move down when the page moves up. In the early days it also could have been coded / implemented the other way, arguing that an upwards movement would logically cause an upwards movement. It was (and still is) just a matter of agreements / conventions / habits.

[thomaso]

A history of scroll directions … https://blog.logrocket.com/ux-design/natural-vs-reverse-scrolling/

Quote

“Natural” and “reverse” scrolls are the names introduced by Apple in 2011 (…)

(…) While the first computer mouse prototype was built in 1964, it reached personal computers much later. The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use in 1973 and was the first one to support a mouse.

In 1981, the Xerox Star was shipped with a mouse and with the navigation adapted for it. That includes the introduction of the scrollbar.

This new scrollbar was quite a misleading one, trying to combine natural and reverse behavior. That pattern was quickly changed to the reversed one, which is still the convention for the scrollbars on every device. (…)

[thomaso]

16 hours ago, Eugen said:

I find the second one counterintuitive.

41 minutes ago, Eugen said:

I don’t see anything wrong with that.

This little app (in 2024!) seems to prove that the idea/perception/expectation of scrolling directions can still vary between individuals:

"Scroll Reverser is a Mac app that reverses the direction of scrolling, with independent settings for trackpads and mice (including Magic Mouse)."

(I can't imagine the difference between this app and the available macOS system settings. The "App" icon top right may indicate that it applies to selected apps only.)

[Eugen]

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

Also in the past there was no technical need to have a scroll bar move down when the page moves up. In the early days it also could have been coded / implemented the other way, arguing that an upwards movement would logically cause an upwards movement. It was (and still is) just a matter of agreements / conventions / habits.

Actually, that’s not true. There was a reason why developers designed it that way. The aspect ratio between the height of the scrollbar thumb and the height of the scrollbar track should be equal to the aspect ratio between the visible part of a document and the entire document. This way, by looking at the size of the scrollbar, a user can understand how long a document/page is without scrolling.

The position of the scrollbar thumb on the track is meant to match the position of the visible part of the document/page relative to the entire  document/page. As a result, the direction of the scrollbar thumb movement corresponds to the inverted movement of the viewport along the entire document/page.

When the mouse scroll wheel was invented and the first mouse with it was released (Microsoft IntelliMouse in 1996), developers simply matched the scrolling direction to the scrollbars, as users were already accustomed to that specific direction.

Edited August 13, 2024 by Eugen
grammar mistakes

[thomaso]

20 minutes ago, Eugen said:

Actually, that’s not true. There was a reason why developers designed it that way.

Of course there was a 'reason' (argument, decision). But there was no 'need' (necessity, technical requirement) for exactly this decision. As you say:

24 minutes ago, Eugen said:

developers simply matched the scrolling direction to the scrollbars, as users were already accustomed to that specific direction.

…but they could have chosen differently for the first scrollbar, instead of simply following a habit. The “natural” switch happened later.

Back to the topic: Aside from “intuition”, unfortunately Serif may argue that moving the scroll wheel upwards results in decreased values in the entire Affinity UI. From this perspective, changing the current implementation of hardnesses scroll direction could be judged as wrong, regardless of whether the initial decision happened “by design”, “by concept” or simply “by coincidence”.

So the question may be why there is a difference in the direction for the value field interface via arrow buttons versus scrolling:

  Scrolling Up decreases | Arrow Up increases. 🤔

[Pšenda]

19 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Take an actual graphite pencil and a piece of paper. Draw a line using the pencil with as little pressure as possible, now push down on the pencil as you draw. Which line looks like it was done with a "Hard 'Brush'"? I will wager it is the one that you pushed down on.

Yes - increasing the pressure, i.e. moving down, makes the pencil harder.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

Yes - increasing the pressure, i.e. moving down, makes the pencil harder.

No – or what are you talking about?

• An analog pencil gets softer/darker with increased drawing pressure, definitely not "harder".
• A digital raster pencil changes its "flow" with drawing pressure.
  A digital vector pencil (AD's Pencil Tool) doesn't have a hardness setting.
• For both (analog/digital raster brush), pressing harder while drawing/painting increases stroke width (-> size) and/or darkness (-> "flow") but does not make it sharper (-> "Hardness" in terms of Affinity).

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

An analog pencil gets softer/darker with increased drawing pressure, definitely not "harder".

??? To me darker is effectively the opposite of softer. IOW, the harder I press the darker the pencil mark becomes, while the softer I press the lighter (less dark) it becomes.

[thomaso]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

the harder I press the darker the pencil mark becomes

Like OldBruce and Psenda you seem to confuse drawing "pressure" with brush "hardness". Two pairs of socks, regardless of analog or digital. See also …

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Like OldBruce and Psenda you seem to confuse drawing "pressure" with brush "hardness".

No, I am simply comparing the results of varying the drawing pressure with the pencil marks it creates. It has nothing to do with brush (or pencil) hardness!

[thomaso]

Just now, R C-R said:

It has nothing to do with brush (or pencil) hardness!

That's the confusion you continue. This topic is explicitly about the brush property "hardness":

>> Changing the brush hardness using a mouse… <<

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, thomaso said:

That's the confusion you continue. This topic is explicitly about the brush property "hardness":

It is the same for brushes. Whether you use a brush with stiffer ("hard") or suppler ("soft") bristles, the harder you press the darker the results.

[thomaso]

6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

, the harder you press the darker the results.

Again, this topic is not about drawing pressure!

The "Hardness" setting of a brush rather sets its sharp-/blur-/softness and thus may influence darkness at its edges only while the actual brush colour in the stroke's centre does not change. See the examples above: from 100% to 0% hardness the 'darkness' of the stroke does not change.

[R C-R]

43 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Again, this topic is not about drawing pressure!

It about adjusting the brush hardness via the Control + Option + Click method, so to me it is analogous to how pressure is used to change the properties of real brushes. So it seems perfectly logical to me that hardness would decrease with upward mouse motion & increase with downward mouse motion. This is because I associate upward with away from & downward with toward the surface.

I suppose others may see it the other way around.

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Again, this topic is not about drawing pressure!

No one claims that.

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Like OldBruce and Psenda you seem to confuse drawing "pressure" with brush "hardness".

It can be seen that you have not completely understood the meaning of the thread, which does not address "what is" hardness, or "what is" pressure, but "why the hardness increases downwards". Unlike the OP, who finds the down direction counterintuitive, I see it as logical/natural, because increasing the pressure (ie moving down towards the paper) increases the intensity/darkness of the line drawn by the pencil. So for me, the downward direction to increase hardness is intuitive.

P.S. The direction up and down also corresponds to the definition of the hardness grading of the pencils.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil

Edited August 13, 2024 by Pšenda

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

because I associate upward with away from & downward with toward the surface.

11 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

because increasing the pressure (ie moving down towards the paper) increases the intensity/darkness of the line drawn by the pencil.

One more time: The "hardness" setting has nothing to do with pressure towards the surface or paper or with increasing darkness. Therefore, this comparison or association is not relevant or accurate because there is simply no relationship between the Affinity "hardness" setting and a brush movement towards a surface. However, if you insist in an analogy: Pressing an analog brush towards the paper reduces the hard- & sharpness of the stroke's contour and the stroke becomes less sharp (≠ “hardness”).

As also mentioned, the Affinity UI uses different directions of movement to let the user increase a value. It can be horizontal ->, or upwards ↑, or downwards ↓, … even all three directions for 1 same property, for instance:

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, thomaso said:

One more time:

One more time from me as well. I can only tell you what seems most logical about this direction & why. If you see it as illogical, so be it.

EDITED to add:

I suspect that if a poll of users was done about this, more would say the current directional adjustment behavior is more logical than if it was reversed ... but a far greater number than either would say it doesn't matter, that either way is fine.