[Aph] Dragging out a horizontal guide from the ruler but getting a vertical one instead

[Alex_M]

Sometimes when I drag out a horizontal guide from the ruler it comes out vertical. Why does that happen and how do I prevent it?

[Gear maker]

Alex, on a mac if the option key (probably the alt key on Windows) is held down the guide will be the opposite of expected.  Instead being placed in line with the cursor's position.  Make sure it's not down when starting to drag the guide from the ruler.

[Alex_M]

I know about this feature and I'm not holding down ALT. I actually found out why it happens. If I pan up or down and then very quickly after I drag out a horizontal guide, it will be vertical. I can reproduce this every time. Looks like a bug to me. I can't reproduce the same behavior for getting horizontal lines from the vertical ruler. Should I report this in the bugs section?

 

EDIT: Actually scratch that. It happens when I drag the horizontal guides at an angle, not perfectly straight down. Is it supposed to do this? I also can't reproduce this behavior on the vertical ruler, it gives me vertical guides no matter the angle I drag them out at. So again, maybe a bug?

 

EDIT2: Maybe I was wrong again. I think it happens if I drag out the guide quickly. If I drag it slowly it's always horizontal.

[DWright]

Hi Alex_M,

 

Is it possible for you to take a screen recording of this as I have not been able to replicate this issue

[firstdefence]

I've tried doing what the OP is saying is happening in AP and no matter what I do I cannot replicate it. 

 

 

[dutchshader]

i don't know what it triggers, but i get the same as Alex-m.

all guides are dragged from the horizontal ruler.

 

Edit: same thing happens in designer

 

[Polygonius]

Not here: I tried with different angles and different speeds, all fine.

Things like that are not seldom limited to an OS or other special configuration: 

I use AP 167, OSX10.11.6, Better touch tool 2.405

 

[R C-R]

37 minutes ago, dutchshader said:

i don't know what it triggers, but i get the same as Alex-m.

Like for @firstdefence & @Polygonius, I cannot duplicate this behavior. On my Mac, no matter how fast or at what angle I drag out the guideline, it works as expected.

 

I suppose it is possible it is a Windows-only bug, but I think it is more likely that it is caused by some third party add-on that (for instance) intercepts user inputs before they get to the app to provide some sort of workflow enhancement or additional features. It does not necessarily have to be anything that would normally apply to an Affinity app; it could simply be that it temporarily changes a flag or variable or the like somewhere that affects how the system level code processes keyboard and/or mouse input & does not always change it back quickly enough to prevent it affecting the Affinity app.

 

At least on Macs, this often is the result of an add-on calling a system-provided API at an undocumented entry point or one reserved for use exclusively by the OS.

[Polygonius]

18 minutes ago, R C-R said:

At least on Macs, this often is the result of an add-on calling a system-provided API at an undocumented entry point or one reserved for use exclusively by the OS.

 

Yeah, i believe that too. Maybe its a special entry in system-prefrences, maybe for mouse-behavior???? For me: Some standard-Serif - behavior does not work, cause i have special mouse and help-settings... from booth: OSX preferences and BTT. They are very special and Serif could not reproduce a misbehavior without this infos.

 

Serif would save time, if they implement a simple "create system-report" button (like after a crash) whenever you need, which listed all relavant settings and tweaks by the owner.

[R C-R]

12 minutes ago, Polygonius said:

Serif would save time, if they implement a simple "create system-report" button (like after a crash) whenever you need, which listed all relavant settings and tweaks by the owner.

For what I think should be obvious reasons, this is something that only the OS must be (& usually is) allowed do. If nothing else, allowing an app to gather all that data on its own would create security holes big enough to drive a truck through.

[Polygonius]

48 minutes ago, R C-R said:

 this is something that only the OS must be (& usually is) allowed do.

Right, but i´m afraid a normal user does not know how to find /"print" this. So this "implementation" is just a ask to the OS: please create a text file with sys-report. Not more!

[firstdefence]

@Alex_M How are you dragging the guides out? 

 

1. Using a Mouse
2. Using a Tablet/Pen
3. Using Telekinesis  

[R C-R]

36 minutes ago, Polygonius said:

Right, but i´m afraid a normal user does not know how to find /"print" this. So this "implementation" is just a ask to the OS: please create a text file with sys-report. Not more!

If you mean building something into any app running in user space to do this, at least some of the potential security vulnerabilities would still be there. To mitigate this risk the feature would have to be very carefully coded -- it is in no way so simple that "just" is an appropriate way to describe it, so to speak.

[Alex_M]

I think that I can now reproduce the problem 100% of the time. You just need to drag the guides from the bottom 1-2 pixels of the horizontal ruler. If you drag even a bit above this point it won't happen. Try it out for yourselves. The same bug is not reproducible on the vertical ruler.

 

I am using a mouse as my pointing device (Logitech G102).

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, Alex_M said:

I think that I can now reproduce the problem 100% of the time. You just need to drag the guides from the bottom 1-2 pixels of the horizontal ruler. If you drag even a bit above this point it won't happen. Try it out for yourselves. The same bug is not reproducible on the vertical ruler.

 

I am using a mouse as my pointing device (Logitech G102).

Nice feature you've discovered, Alex. Saves mouse motion, allowing one to get either vertical or horizontal guides using the one ruler

[R C-R]

58 minutes ago, Alex_M said:

I think that I can now reproduce the problem 100% of the time. You just need to drag the guides from the bottom 1-2 pixels of the horizontal ruler. If you drag even a bit above this point it won't happen. Try it out for yourselves.

I tried it for myself & it does not happen for me on the Mac version of either app.

[GRAFKOM]

It is exactly as he writes R C-R. 

You just need to drag the guides from the bottom 1-2 pixels of the horizontal ruler.

It interferes with work.

20180328_211910.mp4

[R C-R]

53 minutes ago, GRAFKOM said:

It is exactly as he writes R C-R. 

You just need to drag the guides from the bottom 1-2 pixels of the horizontal ruler.

It does not happen on my Mac. You are running Windows, so I assume this is some sort of Windows-only bug, or possibly due to a conflict with some other software -- I seem to remember someone reporting something like this that turned out to be a software conflict but I do not remember any of the details.

[walt.farrell]

Well, several of us on Windows are seeing it, which may make it less likely to be a software conflict

[R C-R]

56 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Well, several of us on Windows are seeing it, which may make it less likely to be a software conflict

Unless, of course, you are all running the same conflicting software ... 

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Unless, of course, you are all running the same conflicting software ... 

True, but it would probably also have to be a fairly popular piece of software

[firstdefence]

Well, I zoomed in epically, mainly to make sure I was hitting the 1-2 pixel range and remove inaccurate selection of the reproducible problem. See Gif for how much I zoomed in, but I still cannot reproduce vertical guides from the horizontal ruler. However if I continue to zoom in there is a point where the guides don't show, they are there and you can create new ones but until you zoom out a bit they remain hidden.

 

[R C-R]

15 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Well, I zoomed in epically, mainly to make sure I was hitting the 1-2 pixel range and remove inaccurate selection of the reproducible problem. See Gif for how much I zoomed in, but I still cannot reproduce vertical guides from the horizontal ruler.

I even tried using the Mac's System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom option to magnify the screen to 4X normal size & I still could not reproduce this problem.

[firstdefence]

Just now, R C-R said:

I even tried using the Mac's System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom option to magnify the screen to 4X normal size & I still could not reproduce this problem.

Looking more and more like a windows thing, have you tried zooming in massively to see if the guides hide?

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, firstdefence said:

Looking more and more like a windows thing, have you tried zooming in massively to see if the guides hide?

I tried zooming in to 30,000% (without the accessibility option enabled) but for me the guides don't hide as long as they are within the canvas area.