Selection lines fade after deselect

[kidconcept]

Hello,

 

I've been trying to figure out what causes a magenta line to fade out on deselect. It seems to happen randomly. See the link for a video.

 

https://elpulpo.tinytake.com/sf/MTU4NzM5OV81NDI3MDQz

 

I'm on 1.5.2.58 windows.

[Lee D]

Hi kidconcept,
Welcome to the forums.

 

If you have Show snapping candidates enabled on the Snapping menu, this will show a magenta line around an object to indicate a candidate.

[MEB]

Hi kidconcept,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Those purple lines means the object you just clicked on is now a snapping candidate, that is, an object that you can align/snap other objects to.  In your case you have Show snapping candidates unchecked in the Snapping Manager thus the objects only do that quick flash (menu View ▸ Snapping Manager...) but you can have this enabled permanently checking that option. When you enable it, all objects that are snapping candidates will display a purple outline around them permanently (by default 6). If you click on another (the 7th) the first one will be taken out of the snapping candidate list and its purple outline will disappear.

 

For more info about Snapping Candidates check this video tutorial.

[jAffinitySerif]

I have “Show snapping candidates” unticked, but I still sometimes randomly see the magenta lines appear and slowly fade away when deselecting objects. It’s confusing and distracting. 

[Alfred]

As @MEB explained in the post before yours, you’ll only get those lines permanently displayed if you have ‘Show Snapping Candidates’ turned on, but if it’s turned off you’ll still see them briefly. You would need to disable snapping in order not to see them at all.

[R C-R]

56 minutes ago, Alfred said:

As @MEB explained in the post before yours, you’ll only get those lines permanently displayed if you have ‘Show Snapping Candidates’ turned on, but if it’s turned off you’ll still see them briefly.

I have probably misunderstood something about how this works, but if I have ‘Show Snapping Candidates’ turned off, I don't see the purple candidate outlines show at all, even briefly. If I have it turned on, I always see them, so I know that much is working correctly.

I think it must have something to do with how the other snapping options are set, or maybe something about what I am selecting, but I have not figured out what it is I must do to get the brief flash & fade behavior.

Any suggestions?

[Alfred]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think it must have something to do with how the other snapping options are set, or maybe something about what I am selecting, but I have not figured out what it is I must do to get the brief flash & fade behavior.

Any suggestions?

I believe the following is the expected behaviour:

On 5/9/2017 at 9:49 AM, MEB said:

Those purple lines means the object you just clicked on is now a snapping candidate, that is, an object that you can align/snap other objects to.

In other words, whenever a newly clicked object joins the list of snapping candidates, a purple outline should be displayed (either persisting if ‘Show Snapping Candidates’ is turned on, or fading if the option is turned off).

[R C-R]

27 minutes ago, Alfred said:

In other words, whenever a newly clicked object joins the list of snapping candidates, a purple outline should be displayed (either persisting if ‘Show Snapping Candidates’ is turned on, or fading if the option is turned off).

That is not what is happening here if I do not have "Show Snapping Candidates" enabled -- there is no brief, fading purple outline at all. It is persistent if I have it on.

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

That is not what is happening here if I do not have "Show Snapping Candidates" enabled -- there is no brief, fading purple outline at all. It is persistent if I have it on.

Looking again at the older posts in this thread, I wonder whether my description (and Miguel’s) could be the wrong way around. The topic title and the original post refer to the lines fading out “on deselect” — in other words, appearing briefly when an object is dropped from the candidate list because another object has taken its place.

[R C-R]

39 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Looking again at the older posts in this thread, I wonder whether my description (and Miguel’s) could be the wrong way around. The topic title and the original post refer to the lines fading out “on deselect” — in other words, appearing briefly when an object is dropped from the candidate list because another object has taken its place.

That could be it, but I am not sure if I see that or not in my tests -- the purple outlines are really small (thin) on my 27" screen so even when objects are in the candidate list it is hard to see the outlines.

[jAffinitySerif]

I have created a feature request to disable this flash-and-fade of purple/pink/magenta lines. 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/150679-disable-fading-magenta-lines-from-deselection/

 

[MEB]

Hi @jofearth,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
To disable the purple lines permanently (including the brief flashing) change the Candidates dropdown list to anything other than Candidates List.

 

On 10/9/2021 at 9:16 PM, Alfred said:

Looking again at the older posts in this thread, I wonder whether my description (and Miguel’s) could be the wrong way around. The topic title and the original post refer to the lines fading out “on deselect” — in other words, appearing briefly when an object is dropped from the candidate list because another object has taken its place.

The explanation i gave in the third post is correct. With Show Snapping Candidates disabled the purple lines still flash if Candidates List is selected in the Candidates dropdown. With Show Snapping Candidates ticked/enabled the purple lines are permanently displayed.

[Alfred]

12 minutes ago, MEB said:

The explanation i gave in the third post is correct.

In that case, my explanation (quoting from yours) was correct, too! The reason why I wondered whether we were missing something is that the OP referred to the fading lines seen “on deselect”; i.e. when you click away from an existing snapping candidate, rather than (or in addition to) clicking on a new snapping candidate. I hope this clarifies the point I was making.

[jAffinitySerif]

> To disable the purple lines permanently (including the brief flashing) change the Candidates dropdown list to anything other than Candidates List.

I have now changed it from Candidate List to All Layers, and it seems to solve it in testing (by clicking randomly on and off various laters). It’s hard to confirm, since I never could reliably produce the unwanted flash (it’s seemingly random). But for now, it appears to be solved.

Do I need to save this change in any way, or can I trust it will stay fixed forever? Thank you.

[R C-R]

16 hours ago, jofearth said:

It’s hard to confirm, since I never could reliably produce the unwanted flash (it’s seemingly random).

At least on my Mac, the flash only appeared once after deselecting the object. After that it would not appear until/unless I closed & reopened the document.

Also, even when it appears, the flash is really brief, just a fraction of a second, so it doesn't fade out so much as just appear & then almost immediately disappear.

EDIT: I did not understand how it works until @MEB explained it below, which explains why I thought the flash would only appear once.

Edited October 12, 2021 by R C-R

[MEB]

14 hours ago, jofearth said:

> To disable the purple lines permanently (including the brief flashing) change the Candidates dropdown list to anything other than Candidates List.

I have now changed it from Candidate List to All Layers, and it seems to solve it in testing (by clicking randomly on and off various laters). It’s hard to confirm, since I never could reliably produce the unwanted flash (it’s seemingly random). But for now, it appears to be solved.

Do I need to save this change in any way, or can I trust it will stay fixed forever? Thank you.

No, you don't need to do anything else. Of course if you change the Preset in the Snapping Manager or reset the app  etc then the setting will change but now you know how to disable it.

The behaviour is not random and it's very easy to reproduce. Assuming you have the Candidates dropdown set to Candidates List and the Maximum value  right below that dropdown set to 6 (the default) do the following:
1. create a new document and draw 7 rectangles from the top to the bottom of the page (so more or less aligned vertically) - what's important here is that you recognize the order they were drawn - so if you start from the top and end on bottom you know which one was the first, the second etc.

2. Switch to the Move Tool. Remember the maximum number of snapping candidates is set to 6. Affinity automatically adds new objects to the candidate list as you draw them. This means the first six rectangles you drew were automatically added to that list. As soon as you draw the seventh (on the bottom of the page) the first one on the top is automatically removed from the candidates list so it's no longer a candidate (since the maximum allowed is set to 6). If you click or simply mouse-over for a couple moments that first rectangle on top, the purple lines will then flash to let you know that it's now added again to the candidates list (because any object you select or mouse-over for a couple moments is added to the list immediately*). Since the first rectangle was added to the list again, the second one you drew was automatically and simultaneously removed from the list, so if you click or mouse-over it (a couple seconds), the purple lines will flash on that one too, to let you know that since you selected it, it's now part of the candidates list again - and so on and so forth. If you happen to click/select a rectangle that's already part of the candidate list the purple lines will NOT flash since well... it was already part of the list (which is what happens if you immediately click or mouse-over the fifth or sixth rectangles you drew immediately after you draw the seventh for example).

* the mouse-over behaviour is to provide you a way to add any object to the candidate list while you are dragging another for example so you can immediately snap to that object if it doesn't belong to the current candidate list.

Hope this clears things up.

[jAffinitySerif]

> if you change the Preset in the Snapping Manager or reset the app  etc then the setting will change

Could you please clarify what you mean by “etc”? I was thinking I might need to save this to my studio preset, but now that I look, I don’t see where even that can be done (it appears I can only add, rename, or delete, not edit).

> The behaviour is not random and it's very easy to reproduce.

Please see again the video in my bug report (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/150688-magenta-lines-randomly-flash-and-fade-following-layer-deselection/) where I demonstrate it is random cannot be reliably reproduced.

[MEB]

Hi @jofearth,
1. You can save it to the Snapping presets if you want to keep your specific (non-existing) setup. Just set the snapping Manager options as you want, click the small menu icon on the right of the Presets dropdown and select Create preset. Presets can't be edited as you discovered, you will have to create a new one if you want to keep another with something different. In practise however this is rare. If you need to change a setting casually for some specific work just enable it in the snapping manager - you will notice the preset name will disappear from the preset dropdown since you customized it. To restore the usual preset you use just select it from the Presets list again.
The default presets that ship with the app cannot be changed or deleted.

2. Please follow the steps i explained in my post above to understand the behaviour of the candidates list. Your video simply shows that the objects are not flashing a second time after you clicked on them once and that's because they were already added to the candidates list the first time you clicked on them and they flashed. Only objects that do not belong to the current candidates list will flash the purple lines. The maximum number of snapping candidates is defined by the Maximum field in the Snapping Manager. As soon as the list becomes full (that is, as soon as the first six objects are selected assuming you keep the default value at 6) Affinity starts removing the first ones that were added to the list for each new one you add to it by clicking (or mouse-hovering) an object that are not yet on that list.
As i said if you follow the steps i outlined above you will understand the logic behind it.
If you find it confusing and distracting you can disable the flashing as i explained or in alternative make the purple lines permanently visible so you know which objects are currently on the candidates list (to enable the purple lines permanently tick the Show Snapping Candidates checkbox in the Snapping Manager).

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, MEB said:

Your video simply shows that the objects are not flashing a second time after you clicked on them once and that's because they were already added to the candidates list the first time you clicked on them and they flashed.

FWIW, that is the part I did not understand when I was first testing this, but it definitely does work that way on my Mac, so I think it should work the same way for @jofearth (& for everyone else too, for that matter).

[jAffinitySerif]

> Please follow the steps i explained in my post above to understand the behaviour of the candidates list.

I tried to follow your steps, but they weren’t entirely clear, and I could not create the unwanted flash. Could you create or link a video to demonstrate?

I have used Affinity product for a few years now, having come from many years of using Adobe products. I have never understood why the seemingly random flash of pink lines occurs. I have always found it distracting. I like when it shows me green lines to center or align with the page or other objects, and when it shows me numbers to measure distance. I wish I could choose what angles to align (base-45° vs base-30°), like Adobe does. And I wish the pink flashes (which communicate nothing) would stop.

Thank you.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, jofearth said:

I have never understood why the seemingly random flash of pink lines occurs. I have always found it distracting.

Miguel explained why it may seem random even though it isn’t. He also explained how to turn it off:

On 10/11/2021 at 9:52 AM, MEB said:

To disable the purple lines permanently (including the brief flashing) change the Candidates dropdown list to anything other than Candidates List.