PROdult Posted February 3 Posted February 3 This is really frustrating when an ambitious customer tries to use Designer or Publisher on an iPad Pro in a setup that occasionally involves a mouse and keyboard. Icons like Transform, Zoom, Preview, and Snap can only be toggled on/off via an external mouse. If you need to access the dropdown options for these buttons, you have to use either touch or a pen. This also means that the Zoom icon cannot be used with a mouse at all. Since this is basic and fundamental functionality in apps and across apps - not an edge-case feature - these are simply bugs that need to be fixed as soon as possible. Now that we’re two years past the release of version 2.0, the time for this fix is more than overdue. Quote
Staff Callum Posted February 3 Staff Posted February 3 Hi Prodult, Mouse support on iPad is currently very limited but it is something we are looking to improve in a future update. Thanks C Quote Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP.
PROdult Posted February 3 Author Posted February 3 You can go ahead and tell the decision-makers that you are seriously behind on this and that you’re in a rush. A massive rush. This isn’t just an annoyance - it‘s a defect, an obstacle, a showstopper for serious use of Publisher with a monitor. It doesn’t work with a mouse, Magic Trackpad, and god knows what else, so pushing this issue further down the road is a really, really bad business decision. On a workplace iPad connected to an external screen with a keyboard and mouse, where Affinity has been moved to the external screen, you literally CANNOT click on the icon on that screen with your pen og finger, can you? Quote
Kaleb Cadle Posted February 6 Posted February 6 I haven’t had any issues with mouse support on my iPad. I regularly switch between using Affinity apps on my iPad with and without the Magic Keyboard Case, and I have never had any issues with the mouse support. Everything is clickable, and the cursor even changes for different tools just like on the desktop version. To use the dropdown options for tools in the sidebar, you just click on the button again to expose the drop down. Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 I don’t experience any of what you’re experiencing with a Bluetooth mouse or the latest Apple Magic Trackpad on an iPad Pro with latest iPadOS. Never did on any version. However, I experience that I can only toggle buttons on and off, while the dropdown section of the buttons cannot be activated at all, no matter what I do or how many times I try or where I try to click. I see nothing but a round circle on the screen, and the pattern is that when I click on icons with my fingers or the Apple Pencil, the dropdown appears, and the icon's behavior is correct. However, anything external doesn’t register the icon as anything other than a simple on-off click. Kaleb Cadle 1 Quote
Kaleb Cadle Posted February 7 Posted February 7 4 hours ago, PROdult said: I don’t experience any of what you’re experiencing with a Bluetooth mouse or the latest Apple Magic Trackpad on an iPad Pro with latest iPadOS. Never did on any version. However, I experience that I can only toggle buttons on and off, while the dropdown section of the buttons cannot be activated at all, no matter what I do or how many times I try or where I try to click. I see nothing but a round circle on the screen, and the pattern is that when I click on icons with my fingers or the Apple Pencil, the dropdown appears, and the icon's behavior is correct. However, anything external doesn’t register the icon as anything other than a simple on-off click. I guess you must be experiencing a bug then, because that’s definitely not the proper behavior. Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app? Sometimes that can help. Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 It sounds to me like you’re using Apple hardware that is handled differently than mine, and that Serif hasn’t implemented full support for Bluetooth mice or trackpads here so they behave more like on desktop. It has never worked in any Affinity apps here, whether release or beta, and I recall a post where someone from Affinity was able to reproduce it with a pointing device once, so I’m waiting for Serif’s move. I have other apps that switch to the pointer tool, and it’s absolutely essential for the pen tool and node tool with that level of precision instead of a thick dot. Now, Serif has stated above that they haven’t fully implemented support for Bluetooth devices yet, so I’m not spending any more time experimenting. I’ve already spent enough time checking if it was an app or iPad settings issue. Quote
Kaleb Cadle Posted February 7 Posted February 7 26 minutes ago, PROdult said: It sounds to me like you’re using Apple hardware that is handled differently than mine, and that Serif hasn’t implemented full support for Bluetooth mice or trackpads here so they behave more like on desktop. It has never worked in any Affinity apps here, whether release or beta, and I recall a post where someone from Affinity was able to reproduce it with a pointing device once, so I’m waiting for Serif’s move. I have other apps that switch to the pointer tool, and it’s absolutely essential for the pen tool and node tool with that level of precision instead of a thick dot. Now, Serif has stated above that they haven’t fully implemented support for Bluetooth devices yet, so I’m not spending any more time experimenting. I’ve already spent enough time checking if it was an app or iPad settings issue. I just paired a Bluetooth mouse I bought from Best Buy a while back. It worked exactly like it does with the trackpad on the Magic Keyboard Case. The drop down options appeared after clicking the button a second time as usual. Maybe it’s a compatibility issue with your Bluetooth mouse, maybe you could try using some other mouse’s or trackpads and see if those work properly. Clearly the app does support using the cursor to expose the drop down options for tools, you must be encountering a bug or maybe a compatibility issue with the mouse you’re using. 👍🏻. To clarify, I am running Affinity V2 apps (current public version) on an M1 iPad Pro 11” with an Insignia PM3NK3B24 Bluetooth mouse and a Magic Keyboard Case. When I tested with the Bluetooth mouse, I removed the iPad from the Magic Keyboard Case to ensure that wouldn’t impact the results in any way. Have you tried reinstalling the apps? Sometimes, as I mentioned before, that will remove some bugs that hold over from previous versions of the app and persist with app updates. Another thing you could try is using some different mice and/or trackpads to make sure it isn’t an issue specific to your mouse. I hope some of that helps. 👍🏻 Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 Thank you for you input and experiments - very kind of you. 🙂 Recent iPad Pro and Magic Trackpad 2 should really work with the latest versions. I only recently installed the betas so they should work in their own sandbox and settings environment. Kaleb Cadle 1 Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 I uninstalled an app for the sake of the experiment – and to not be a stubborn fool if you were right and I didn’t try – but it makes no difference upon reinstallation. I relate to Serif’s explanation above that there is only basic support for Bluetooth mice, and that the same mouse can activate a pointer and work with pixel precision as a regular pen or node pointer in other apps where support is built-in. The two of us don’t need to spend more time on this; it’s Serif’s responsibility. But a thousand thanks for giving it time and effort, I value that. 👍🙂 Kaleb Cadle 1 Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 17 hours ago, Kaleb Cadle said: I haven’t had any issues with mouse support on my iPad. I regularly switch between using Affinity apps on my iPad with and without the Magic Keyboard Case, and I have never had any issues with the mouse support. Everything is clickable, and the cursor even changes for different tools just like on the desktop version. To use the dropdown options for tools in the sidebar, you just click on the button again to expose the drop down. @Callum It’s probably easiest if Serif explains this difference in behavior between Kaleb and me. I’ve never heard of Affinity supporting as much as Kaleb claims, but what could be the reason for that? Can you confirm that with a modern Bluetooth mouse, I should expect to see a gray dot instead of pointer symbols and that the buttons I described may malfunction? iPad Pro M2, iPadOS 18.3, new Logitech Bluetooth mouse, ditto trackpad Kaleb Cadle 1 Quote
Kaleb Cadle Posted February 7 Posted February 7 2 hours ago, PROdult said: Thank you for you input and experiments - very kind of you. 🙂 Recent iPad Pro and Magic Trackpad 2 should really work with the latest versions. I only recently installed the betas so they should work in their own sandbox and settings environment. You’re welcome! 👍🏻. Sorry reinstalling it didn’t fix it for you. I hope you are able to find a solution that works. I’ve attached a couple of screenshots here to show what I’m talking about. The changed cursor is circled in red in one of the screenshots. And the other shows the drop down for a tool button in the side bar that appears when I click again on the button for the tool. This might help for the purposes of Affinity confirming whether or not this is correct app behavior. This is the behavior I get in all of the Affinity V2 apps. I hope this helps. 👍🏻 Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 Your hardware? I use the 11” 2022 M1 iPad Pro. Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 With touch gestures disabled, I see some of the icons you see, such as the Zoom options icon and others, but the dropdown still doesn’t appear. What icon do you see when using the Pen Tool and Node Tool? I see a smaller circle with no fill, which is better but still weird, considering that the color picker can display a precise crosshair pointer. I almost exclusively use the Pen Tool and Node Tool so they are extremely important to me. Additionally, the toolbar buttons on the left work for me, just as in your screenshots, but these do not: This dropdown only works using touch actions on the screen: Kaleb Cadle 1 Quote
Kaleb Cadle Posted February 7 Posted February 7 34 minutes ago, PROdult said: With touch gestures disabled, I see some of the icons you see, such as the Zoom options icon and others, but the dropdown still doesn’t appear. What icon do you see when using the Pen Tool and Node Tool? I see a smaller circle with no fill, which is better but still weird, considering that the color picker can display a precise crosshair pointer. I almost exclusively use the Pen Tool and Node Tool so they are extremely important to me. Additionally, the toolbar buttons on the left work for me, just as in your screenshots, but these do not: This dropdown only works using touch actions on the screen: I think I found a fix to the dropdown issue. If you disable “Pointer Animations” in the iPadOS Pointer Control settings, then it works okay, at least for me. To get to those settings you go to the Settings app - Accessibility - Pointer Control - and turn the Pointer Animations option off. I attached a screenshot of that Settings page. With that setting turned off, the drop down portion of the button is able to be selected individually, so the drop down works properly. 👍🏻. I attached a screenshot of that as well. 👍🏻 As to the cursor appearance for the Node and Pen tools, I get the same cursor shape you describe, a loop cursor that surrounds the node being selected. I included screenshots of those as well. 👍🏻 I hope this is helpful for you. I think the pointer setting should fix the problem you’re experiencing with the dropdowns. I had the same issue with that setting enabled where those wouldn’t work, but with it toggled off, it works fine for me. 👍🏻 PROdult 1 Quote
PROdult Posted February 7 Author Posted February 7 Yes, @Callum and Serif, there’s your bug. Kaleb, who actually investigated the issue, found the cause. Shall we send him a thank you? It’s a shame I can’t invoice you for the costly time I’ve spent on this over a long period, but you can make it up by fixing the bug and implementing proper pointers for the Pen Tool and Node Tool. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say these are the major key features in Designer and many other vector drawing programs. In other words, @Kaleb Cadle, the unbillable time you so selflessly invested in my (and our here where I perform my work) paid off; it was indeed this pointer animation setting—disabled—that restored my dropdown functionality. I don’t believe I’ve ever turned these animations ON, so it must be a default setting, making it an ugly bug. Since I don’t know what you look like, @Kaleb Cadle, I can’t build a statue of you, but I send you my heartfelt thanks for your qualified and patient effort. And now I’ll stop before this turns into an Oscar acceptance speech. 😄 👏 Kaleb Cadle 1 Quote
Kaleb Cadle Posted February 7 Posted February 7 10 minutes ago, PROdult said: Yes, @Callum and Serif, there’s your bug. Kaleb, who actually investigated the issue, found the cause. Shall we send him a thank you? It’s a shame I can’t invoice you for the costly time I’ve spent on this over a long period, but you can make it up by fixing the bug and implementing proper pointers for the Pen Tool and Node Tool. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say these are the major key features in Designer and many other vector drawing programs. In other words, @Kaleb Cadle, the unbillable time you so selflessly invested in my (and our here where I perform my work) paid off; it was indeed this pointer animation setting—disabled—that restored my dropdown functionality. I don’t believe I’ve ever turned these animations ON, so it must be a default setting, making it an ugly bug. Since I don’t know what you look like, @Kaleb Cadle, I can’t build a statue of you, but I send you my heartfelt thanks for your qualified and patient effort. And now I’ll stop before this turns into an Oscar acceptance speech. 😄 👏 Thanks, no problem, I’m glad I was able to help! 👍🏻. PROdult 1 Quote
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