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I am digging deeper into the Pen and Shape tools in Designer 1.5 on macOS 10.13, and really loving :17_heart_eyes: them both. I am exploring and practicing as many of the different options as possible, using them over and over again in the hope of mastering them. However, there is one operation that I cannot seem to master, no matter how many times I try. 

 

While in the Node tool, and one or more blue handles are active and visible, I will try to delete a specific handle using the cusp mode alt/option-click. I always hover first over the handle until the arrow turns black, and then holding down alt/option key left-clicking on the handle. The context help on the bottom clearly shows it is in cusp mode, and the arrow is black, but way more often than not, the handle does not delete. Very rarely does the delete occur on the first option-click, and usually it takes multiple attempts before I can get the delete to work. I have tried all different sorts of sequences, such as single-click, wait one second without moving the pointer, then option-click, and nothing gives me predicable, reproducible results. It seems almost random, and I do not notice any pattern in what actions the successful deletion operations. I even went into the mouse settings to slow the pointer speed way down, and that didn't help at all.

Are there any undocumented "tricks" that produce better, more consistent results when deleting node control handles in the Node tool? I have a personal goal of gaining complete mastery over this simple operation, to the point of being able to delete a node on the first click, every time; I do hope someone can help.

 

As a side note, I have used the pen tool in many different applications, and the one in Affinity Designer/Photo is the only one that I actually enjoy using. Every aspect of the use and response of this tool feels so natural and intuitive; I have no idea how they did it, but the devs really nailed it with their implementation. It just feels right!

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Hi Michael Sheaver,

Are you using a Wacom/tablet or a regular mouse? I'm not having trouble deleting the handles on first try. Assuming you are not having trouble because they are a little small (you can enlarge them anyway in the Preferences, Tools section) there may be something more going on. Are you using any third party menu utilities or similar that may interfere with he shortcuts?

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10 hours ago, MEB said:

Are you using a Wacom/tablet or a regular mouse?

 

I am using a Logitech mouse with this exercise; I do have a Wacom tablet, but not using it at the moment though.

 

10 hours ago, MEB said:

Assuming you are not having trouble because they are a little small (you can enlarge them anyway in the Preferences, Tools section) there may be something more going on.

 

I do have the tool handle size set to Largest.

 

10 hours ago, MEB said:

Are you using any third party menu utilities or similar that may interfere with he shortcuts?

 

I do have a number of utilities installed and running that may have an impact on this, including Capto and Logitech Options, and will either disable or install them as part of further troubleshooting.

 

Another Possible Avenue for Investigation

Your questions have sparked another possibility that I had not considered before. Let me explain what I have been struggling with some time now. For quite a while I have been using a wonderful and incredibly powerful Bible software called Verbum (www.verbum.com), but beginning perhaps a year or two ago, I began to notice a particularly odd bit of behavior with regard to mouse-clicking. Extensive troubleshooting determined that if there was any movement in the mouse pointer in the split (nano) second between click on an object and releasing the mouse button, the application would interpret it as a mouse drag and would produce the behavior that the mouse drag event should produce. I found that to avoid this, I had to focus on my hand and make absolutely sure 1) not to move the mouse, and 2) make the. left mouse click-and-release as quick as possible. Even with this extra care, I found it to be a crap shoot, taking multiple tries to get the desired action. After some more digging and tweaking, I (perhaps incorrectly) attributed this hyper-sensitivity in mouse behavior to the Chromium framework upon which this application is built, and resigned myself to the possibility that it might never go away. I did eventually find a "workaround" for this, and that was to use my Wacom tablet instead of the mouse while using this application; it gave me much better and more consistent results and all but eliminated the mouse click issue.

 

10 hours ago, MEB said:

I'm not having trouble deleting the handles on first try.

 

Until I read this comment, I had never tied the mouse behavior in Verbum with the current issue with option-clicking handles in Designer, but now I wonder if they are really different manifestations of the same problem. Now that I know this, I will pursue this line of troubleshooting, and most certainly report my findings here. 

 

Side Note on Wacom Tablets

I have a Wacom Bamboo Create tablet which I love, but it has become increasingly difficulty to keep functioning on macOS, due to their unwillingness to continue support for it. Since my post on StackExchange about it:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/252307/wacom-bamboo-create-driver-for-macos-10-12

 

They have finally just recently updated their drivers for macOS 10.13, but alas, these new drivers do not recognize my Bamboo, and the release notes do indeed exclude the Create from the list of supported devices. Because of this, I have begun to search out alternative replacements.

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2 hours ago, Michael Sheaver said:

Extensive troubleshooting determined that if there was any movement in the mouse pointer in the split (nano) second between click on an object and releasing the mouse button, the application would interpret it as a mouse drag and would produce the behavior that the mouse drag event should produce. I found that to avoid this, I had to focus on my hand and make absolutely sure 1) not to move the mouse, and 2) make the. left mouse click-and-release as quick as possible. Even with this extra care, I found it to be a crap shoot, taking multiple tries to get the desired action.

 

Depending on the construction of your mouse, you may be able to work around the problem by lifting it slightly off the mouse mat (or whatever surface you use it on) so that the pointer won't move when you click.

 

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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3 hours ago, Michael Sheaver said:

Extensive troubleshooting determined that if there was any movement in the mouse pointer in the split (nano) second between click on an object and releasing the mouse button, the application would interpret it as a mouse drag and would produce the behavior that the mouse drag event should produce.

You may be able to mitigate this by reducing the "Tracking speed" setting, either in Logitech Options or in System Preferences > Mouse. I am not sure if changing it in System Preferences will affect your Logitech mouse, one or the other should have the effect of making the pointer a bit less sensitive to movement.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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