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[Beta 1.7.0.209] Still no Pen Mode option


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There is still no Pen Mode option anywhere in this application, this makes drawing and illustrating on Surface Pros, Wacom Cintiq, etc very annoying as you'll leave unwanted marks when you lay the hand on the screen. For anyone wondering, Pen Mode is an option that disables touch drawing.

All I ask is a simple if statement:

  • Fingers are touching the canvas, are they zooming/scrolling? If yes, do the scroll/zoom, if no do nothing.

That's it, no further logic needed. Can we do this one thing? It would help massively all illustrators out there.

Thanks!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Illustration is one of the things where Affinity Designer really excels. To the best of my knowledge no other software, Adobe or otherwise, does vector shapes + bitmap brushes + global colours. It's a unique selling point that makes it stand out from everyone else. Investing a bit of time in adding a Pen mode feature would really help cement Designer as a 'go to' software for illustration purposes.

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  • 2 months later...

I've looked into this and it seems like an option to do this kind of palm rejection already exists in the iPad versions, it's called Touch for Gestures Only. Can we please get this on Windows too?

The API to do this is dead simple, it literally tells you if the input is a finger touch or a pen. Here I'll even point you to it: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/api/winuser/nf-winuser-getpointertype

Can we have a word from the developers if this is being added in 1.7? Or are we supposed to keep doing the following dance:

  1. draw
  2. draw more
  3. draw a bit
  4. draw yet some more
  5. realize that between 1. and 2. a stray mark was done under your hand
  6. undo everything until 1.
  7. redo all your work until point 4. again
  8. hope that this time no stray marks were done otherwise it's back to 1.
  9. get frustrated that something this simple is overlooked

Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Agreed! I picked up an ideapad to use the pen feature for drawing. It's nearly impossible to use in Affinity Designer/Photo. If you go in a the wrong angle or lift the pen too high, you get marks or new boxes under your hand.

 

Here are some other posts requesting the same feature:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/63156-how-do-you-disable-touch-drawing-on-affinity-photo/&do=findComment&comment=427164https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/58505-disable-just-finger-drawing/  (This mentions Krita; an open source drawing program that toggles this feature via "Enable Touch Painting")

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/51014-option-to-disable-touch-input-on-tools/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/48625-disabling-the-touch-on-the-surface-book/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/30004-pen-sensitivity-with-touch-rejection/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/40151-toggle-painting-with-touch-when-using-touchscreenstylus/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/50407-option-to-disable-tool-input-with-touch-on-windows/

 

 

Unfortunately evidence shows that windows does not handle this well (with the "disable touches when using the Pen to draw" feature) on it's own and Microsoft has added software like Sketchbook and Sticky notes, that disable touch and only respond to pen on the drawing surface (These work great).

 

Hope this is something we can have added. As mentioned above, there is an open source painting project called Krita that handles this beautifully, maybe they can be a source of inspiration.

It's a pain to switch back and forth between drawing and design.

 

Thanks!

-Ryan

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2 hours ago, barrettorama said:

Unfortunately evidence shows that windows does not handle this well (with the "disable touches when using the Pen to draw" feature) on it's own and Microsoft has added software like Sketchbook and Sticky notes, that disable touch and only respond to pen on the drawing surface (These work great).

Windows handles this just fine, you're just misunderstanding what that option does (it's not very well worded to be honest). With that option enabled what happens is, if you start drawing with the pen first you won't be able to interact with the applications using fingers at the same time. For example, if you start drawing a line with the pen in an application you won't be able to pinch to zoom with your other hand until you lift the pen off the screen. If you disable that option you'll be able to draw lines with the pen and pinch to zoom with your other hand just fine. This option exists only to lessen issues with old and unsupported legacy applications. It's not meant to, and it actually could never, solve all pen + touch interaction situations.

The correct way to handle touch + pen is how softwares like Sketchbook Pro do. When a user interaction happens the software asks Windows "what was this interaction?", and Windows will reply saying it was a "mouse clock", a "finger touch", a "pen tap", etc. There's no secret magic for this to happen either, the Windows function to do it is well documented and accessible to anyone, it's called GetPointerType and I've linked to it in a previous post. It's not new either, it's been around since Windows 8.0, that is for 7 years now.

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I am in the imminent process of purchasing a replacement computer.  Ideally a 2 in  1 and in particular the MS Surface Pro 2 in the hope that I can remove an external Cintq stylus by using the tablet feature with the MS stylus. I bump this topic as it is critical for my photo editing and illustration.

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17 hours ago, OneClickAway said:

I am in the imminent process of purchasing a replacement computer.  Ideally a 2 in  1 and in particular the MS Surface Pro 2 in the hope that I can remove an external Cintq stylus by using the tablet feature with the MS stylus. I bump this topic as it is critical for my photo editing and illustration.

While 2-in-1 computers like a Surface Pro are the most obvious devices to benefit from this, let's now forget there are pen displays that also support touch, like Cintiq 22/27 touch or the Dell Canvas 27. They also benefit greatly from this.

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On ‎3‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 4:30 AM, johnkrajewski said:

I am using a Surface Studio 2 and am constantly removing elements drawn unintentionally when I am trying to move or zoom the document. This is a workflow killer. Being able to disable gestures from altering the canvas content would be a huge productivity improvement. 

Yeah, I forgot about the Surface Studio, but yes that's also a use case.

Anyway, I have good news! One of the changes in beta 1.7.0.284 was: "Added 'Touch for Gestures Only' option in Preferences"

I've just tested the said option and it works perfectly! No more stray marks! :)

Thank you Affinity team! You've just made the workflow of all illustrators using Designer (and Photo) much easier and faster! This issue can now be marked as closed and archived away. Thanks again to everyone! xD

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  • 2 months later...
On 3/29/2019 at 6:47 AM, LCamachoDesign said:

Anyway, I have good news! One of the changes in beta 1.7.0.284 was: "Added 'Touch for Gestures Only' option in Preferences"

I'm a little late to the party (I had not tested the beta versions since I'd commented.)

Thank you Affinity Dev Group! The pen feature is working absolutely perfect now.

-Ryan

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