Some shortcuts not working with non-QWERTY layouts

[Unscript]

Configuration

• Affinity Photo 2.5.6 (fresh installation)
• Windows 10 x64, English locale, AZERTY keyboard layout

Problem: Some shortcuts are not accessible on my keyboard layout.

Steps

• I was using the inpainting brush tool.
• I saw that [ and ] were the shortcuts to change the brush size, but when I pressed those keys, it didn't do anything. Strange. Note that on AZERTY, you reach the square brackets with AltGr+^ and AltGr+$, respectively, so nothing complicated (see keyboard layout below).
• I changed the shortcuts in the settings, and when I pressed those keys, I saw how there were translated, as shown in the screenshot below (I only changed increase/decrease brush size, not the two other shortcuts)

A key like [ is apparently translated to Ctrl+Alt+^ (note that AltGr is equivalent to Ctrl+Alt, and ^ $ are the non-modified key symbols), but a symbol like W remain the same in AZERTY, despite its position being different in both layouts. So I suppose the difference isn't directly related to the different layout but lies in the use of Shift, Ctrl, AltGr, and Alt modifier keys, or some of them.

AZERTY layout—blue symbols are obtained with the AltGr modifier, and numbers with Shift

• I tried again after remapping the shortcuts, but pressing those keys didn't do anything, either.
• I tried again after setting Ignore Modifier and remapping the shortcut to the same keys, but that didn't solve the problem, either. The only visible difference was that the keys weren't translated any more, and it put [ and ] back in the dialogue window shown above.
• Finally, I had to remap the shortcuts I wanted to use to simple keys that didn't require AltGr to make it work (in this case, I could have given up and used only the mouse controls, though I only found them by chance).

I don't understand what the restrictions are, and which shortcuts we can and can't use. It's all very confusing.

Other remarks

• Ctrl + 0-9 shortcuts for the zoom levels work fine
• Mapping a shortcut to a top-row digit 0-9 doesn't work as expected. To test it, I remapped the Artistic Text tool. If I press on the 1 key without Shift (which normally outputs a &), the shortcut dialogue window shows 1, not &. Same with Shift+1 or the numpad 1, which all show a 1. But
  • if I press on the 1 key, without Shift (so &), it adds Change Global Opacity to the history window (I didn't hunt for that shortcut in the long list; perhaps it's &)
  • if I press Shift+1, nothing happens
  • if I press on numpad 1, it switches to the Artistic Text tool

So a very inconsistent behaviour with the top numeric keys. Also, the Ignore Modifier option wasn't visible in the Tool shortcut dialogue window (??).

Conclusion

• It misses preset layouts for other non-QWERTY layouts (or a method that bypasses the layout translation). This is a usability problem; remapping manually remains a possibility for the user, even though it's very tedious because they'd have to remap many shortcuts.
• Some basic key combinations don't work. This is a bug. It's very problematic since 1) the user has to find other keys, which may already be used by other shortcuts, and 2) the user must proceed by trial and error to find acceptable replacements.
• 0-9 keys have an inconsistent behaviour. This looks like a bug.
• The Ignore Modifier isn't always available, and when it is, it's not clear what it actually does. The doc says Lets you create shortcuts using a single letter designation instead of using keyboard modifier. I don't know if that's a bug or something else.
• Some mouse shortcuts aren't obvious. Ctrl+Alt+left click and drag up/down or left/right isn't indicated for the Inpaint tool, for instance. Some others are shown at the bottom. I searched the documentation a little, but couldn't find anything.

 

Edited December 4, 2024 by Unscript

[Unscript]

On 12/4/2024 at 11:32 AM, Unscript said:

Some mouse shortcuts aren't obvious. Ctrl+Alt+left click and drag up/down or left/right isn't indicated for the Inpaint tool, for instance. Some others are shown at the bottom. I searched the documentation a little, but couldn't find anything.

Ah, I found this from the product website / learn. 

https://resources.serif.com/spotlight/learning/shortcuts/Affinity-Photo-2-Shortcuts-Windows.pdf

[krbo]

Since v2 of Affinity suite they don't understand properly AltGr key.

It's a known and registered bug (AF-706 I think) lasting for a two years now, nothing done on it.

 

[Unscript]

That's promising. I was wondering why there was no feedback.

[Unscript]

Any news about this bug? No reaction from the developer?