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[By Design] Undoing first stroke in pixel persona should remove automatically added layer


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If one starts with a vector graphic and then adds some strokes in the pixel persona, undoing those strokes leaves an empty layer behind that was automatically created with the first pixel stroke. An additional undo removes this layer, but it should be automatically removed when undoing the first stroke. Each undo should correspond to one user action.

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Hi @Nickkk,

This is not a bug. 

If you look at the history studio, you will notice that there are 2 entries when you make your first stroke. One adds a new pixel layer, one adds a new brush stroke. When you undo, it does it by 1 step, going back into history, and this will not automatically skip 2 steps when the Assistant adds a new layer. 

I've closed this as By design

Thanks,

Gabe. 

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19 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

If you look at the history studio, you will notice that there are 2 entries when you make your first stroke.

Isn’t this analogous to performing an ‘Undo’ after Ctrl-drag or Option/Alt-drag, where in version 1.6 you only undo the ‘Move’ but in version 1.7 you undo both the ‘Move’ and the ‘Duplicate’? It would be both more intuitive and more consistent if undoing a brush stroke also undid (where applicable) the automatic creation of a pixel layer.

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14 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Isn’t this analogous to performing an ‘Undo’ after Ctrl-drag or Option/Alt-drag, where in version 1.6 you only undo the ‘Move’ but in version 1.7 you undo both the ‘Move’ and the ‘Duplicate’? It would be both more intuitive and more consistent if undoing a brush stroke also undid (where applicable) the automatic creation of a pixel layer.

Thanks for supporting me. I also find that there are several inconsistencies which seem to be dismissed because they are by design, without thinking through how a user perceives this design. As a user, I would expect that undoing a stroke would restore the previous state, which does not include that automatically created layer. Those two history items should be merged into one.

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If the Assistant Manager is not set to automatically create a Pixel layer for you, in order to use the Paint brush you would first have to create a pixel layer then paint on it, which is two operations, hence you will need 2 operations to undo it.

If you elect to have the Assistant Manager automatically create a Pixel layer for you, you are simply choosing to reduce your workflow by automating the creation of the pixel layer.

This automatic creation of the pixel layer should therefore not act any differently, as far as the history panel is concerned, to if you had manually created it.

Basically you are saying I cant be ars*ed to create a pixel layer but I know I have to have one so do it for me - hence the need for an entry in the history for this action.

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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I see what you mean, and I didn't know of this Assistant Manager option. Still I think that the automatic layer creation should be merged with the first stroke. If someone doesn't know this and later discovers that this layer exists, he or she will wonder where it comes from. Also I don't see why someone would want to retain this automatic layer. Regardless of this, it is not intuitive to have one user action correspond to more than one undo history entry, because assuming that one of these automatic history entries is not invisible as an empty transparent layer is and the user doesn't notice that there is still at least one change to be undone, he or she could have a hard time correcting the error left behind unless the undo history is always visible and regularly checked.

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10 minutes ago, Nickkk said:

he or she will wonder where it comes from

He or she should learn/understand how the program works and they would then know that the Assistant Manager will automatically create a pixel layer for them if set to do so.

 

10 minutes ago, Nickkk said:

it is not intuitive to have one user action correspond to more than one undo history entry

It is totally intuitive if you have set up the program options to work that way by use of the Assistant Manager.  If you don't like/understand it then you can simply switch off the option in Assistant Manger and create the pixel layer yourself.  Either way you will need to do 2 undo operations to remove the pixel layer, which is correct no matter how you look at it.

 

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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10 minutes ago, carl123 said:

He or she should learn/understand how the program works and they would then know that the Assistant Manager will automatically create a pixel layer for them if set to do so.

Supposing that every user should first understand how everything in a program works is not what I would call user-friendly, particularly if someone is still learning.

 

15 minutes ago, carl123 said:

If you don't like/understand it then you can simply switch off the option in Assistant Manger and create the pixel layer yourself.

If I don't let the app create that layer automatically, then when drawing in the pixel persona nothing seems to happen. History entries are added, but nothing actually appears on the canvas. Here you would probably argue that a user should know that he or she would have to create a new layer first, but being able to select a pixel brush which apparently draws nothing is again not intuitive.

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2 minutes ago, Nickkk said:

If I don't let the app create that layer automatically, then when drawing in the pixel persona nothing seems to happen. History entries are added, but nothing actually appears on the canvas. Here you would probably argue that a user should know that he or she would have to create a new layer first, but being able to select a pixel brush which apparently draws nothing is again not intuitive.

It seems to me that the app should either (a) undo automatically anything that it did automatically or (b) not do anything automatically in the first place. There are numerous scenarios where nothing seems to happen; in some of those scenarios the app tells you what you need to do first, but in others there is no feedback at all.

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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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28 minutes ago, Nickkk said:

Supposing that every user should first understand how everything in a program works is not what I would call user-friendly, particularly if someone is still learning.

We all have to learn what specific functions do and how user settable options can affect what happens when we perform certain actions.  This is true for any new program we choose to install and is simply a learning curve. But once we have learned such things or have had them explained to us, it is not unreasonable to then expect us to understand what is happening and why.

28 minutes ago, Nickkk said:

History entries are added, but nothing actually appears on the canvas.

As regards drawing in the Pixel Persona doing nothing on screen but still creating history entries. 

This would also occur if we have our Opacity set to ZERO or the colour we were using was the same as the background colour. 

If we have history entries for when we use the brush and nothing happens on screen, it shows that the brush is working and thus it should be alerting you to the fact that something else is wrong. Be it zero opacity, wrong colour or forgetting to add a pixel layer

By your logic there should also be no history entries if opacity is set to zero as nothing happens on screen.

Anyway, nice discussion but I have some beers that don't know how to get out their cans so I need to go rescue them. I may be gone for a while.

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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1 hour ago, Alfred said:

It seems to me that the app should either (a) undo automatically anything that it did automatically or (b) not do anything automatically in the first place. There are numerous scenarios where nothing seems to happen; in some of those scenarios the app tells you what you need to do first, but in others there is no feedback at all.

Thanks. It seems like in many scenarios the app expects the user to know why something doesn't work even though the user can still trigger that action, but in other posts I opened about this the Affinity team seems to prefer not having to change the current behaviour.

43 minutes ago, carl123 said:

We all have to learn what specific functions do and how user settable options can affect what happens when we perform certain actions.  This is true for any new program we choose to install and is simply a learning curve. But once we have learned such things or have had them explained to us, it is not unreasonable to then expect us to understand what is happening and why.

I agree, but I think that with such small corrections the experience can only get better for many users who don't know about these settings. Again, I don't see why one would want to retain an automatically created layer. Do you have a scenario where you would want to keep it?

 

45 minutes ago, carl123 said:

By your logic there should also be no history entries if opacity is set to zero as nothing happens on screen.

No, I didn't say that if nothing appears on the canvas there should be no history entries. I meant that it is not intuitive if the user is able to select a brush and draw with it (on an area that is not covered by other user created layers), but nothing appears on the canvas.

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I have already replied to this. The current behaviour is as expected. 

On 4/23/2019 at 4:54 PM, carl123 said:

If the Assistant Manager is not set to automatically create a Pixel layer for you, in order to use the Paint brush you would first have to create a pixel layer then paint on it, which is two operations, hence you will need 2 operations to undo it.

If you elect to have the Assistant Manager automatically create a Pixel layer for you, you are simply choosing to reduce your workflow by automating the creation of the pixel layer.

This automatic creation of the pixel layer should therefore not act any differently, as far as the history panel is concerned, to if you had manually created it.

Basically you are saying I cant be ars*ed to create a pixel layer but I know I have to have one so do it for me - hence the need for an entry in the history for this action.

This is exactly what's going on. 

However, I will move this to feature requests

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I would love to hear why someone would want to keep that automatically created layer when undoing the first stroke. It would help me understand why you think this is a feature rather than a bug.

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1 hour ago, Nickkk said:

I would love to hear why someone would want to keep that automatically created layer when undoing the first stroke. It would help me understand why you think this is a feature rather than a bug.

For me, if I've painted once I'm probably going to paint again, probably immediately. I probably just had the wrong brush selected, or the wrong size, or hardness, or color. That's why I undid the first stroke.

Why waste the processing time of having Photo or Designer delete the layer, only to have to recreate it an instant later.

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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

For me, if I've painted once I'm probably going to paint again, probably immediately. I probably just had the wrong brush selected, or the wrong size, or hardness, or color. That's why I undid the first stroke.

Why waste the processing time of having Photo or Designer delete the layer, only to have to recreate it an instant later.

Exactly, it's a much more probable cause for undo, than I didn't want to draw, and so I don't need a pixel layer.

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