Selection is mirrored when loading externally created SVG

[VIPStephan]

I have this SVG:

<svg width="46px" height="18px" viewBox="0 0 46 18" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
    <g id="Symbols" stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd">
        <g id="arrow-right-white" stroke="#979797">
            <g id="arrows_slim_right">
                <path d="M0,9 L45,9" id="Path" fill="#D8D8D8"></path>
                <polyline id="Path" points="36 18 45 9 36 0"></polyline>
            </g>
        </g>
    </g>
</svg>

Visually, it’s a right pointing arrow. When I’m opening this in AD somehow the whole thing is mirrored; the arrow is pointing left, the rotation handle is at the bottom and if I’m using the arrow keys to move the selection, it moves it in the opposite directions (i. e. using the up arrow key moves the objects down etc.). Is this a bug or am I missing something? Can anyone reproduce this?

[thomaso]

Strange, indeed. When I open the SVG in AfDesigner I get the same issues. Weird, I can not manage to flip or rotate the object to make it move in the correct direction according to the arrow keys on keyboard.

But opening or placing the SVG in AfPublisher does not have that mirroring effect and shows + moves correctly.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

When I open the SVG in AfDesigner I get the same issues.

For me, the arrow points to the right, whether opened in Designer or Publisher. The file I am using is arrow.svg, created as a text file via copy & paste & then changing the extension after saving from txt to svg. After opening the file in Designer & using "Save as" to save it in the native Affinity format, I get arrow.afdesign.

arrow.svg

[thomaso]

With further trials with R C-R's and my files it comes out to me as an issue in version AD v. 1.7.2 only – whereas in AfDesigner Beta 1.7.2.2. both SVGs behave as expected.

[Alfred]

When I first tried to open the file in AD on iPad (version 1.7.2.6) after copying and pasting the text and then renaming the saved text file, I encountered parse errors due to stray characters at the beginning and end of the file. Once I had fixed the errors, it opened with the arrow pointing to the right.

[R C-R]

21 minutes ago, thomaso said:

With further trials with R C-R's and my files it comes out to me as an issue in version AD v. 1.7.2 only – whereas in AfDesigner Beta 1.7.2.2. both SVGs behave as expected.

I was using the regular AD 1.7.2 Mac release version, not a beta, & did not have any issues opening the file in Designer. AFAIK, there is no current Mac Affinity Designer beta -- the 1.7.2.2 customer beta is closed, having been superseded by the 1.7.2 release version.

18 minutes ago, Alfred said:

When I first tried to open the file in AD on iPad (version 1.7.2.6) after copying and pasting the text and then renaming the saved text file, I encountered parse errors due to stray characters at the beginning and end of the file.

Maybe I should have mentioned that I copied the text into the BBEdit app using its "New > Text Document > (with clipboard)" setting & when I saved it as a text file I used its "Unix (LF)" Line breaks & "Unicode (UTF-8)" encoding options, which produced a text file exactly like the copied text, with no extra characters or extra header info.

I am not sure how Windows text editors handle text copied to the clipboard, but as I understand it typically they default to using both LF & CR line breaks.

[Alfred]

12 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am not sure how Windows text editors handle text copied to the clipboard, but as I understand it typically they default to using both LF & CR line breaks.

I believe you’re correct about that, but:

49 minutes ago, Alfred said:

When I first tried to open the file in AD on iPad (version 1.7.2.6) after copying and pasting the text and then renaming the saved text file, I encountered parse errors due to stray characters at the beginning and end of the file.

Perhaps I should have refrained from posting my observations to this desktop thread. 

[R C-R]

23 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Perhaps I should have refrained from posting my observations to this desktop thread. 

FWIW, I added my arrow.svg to iCloud Drive & opened it with AD on iPad v 1.7.2.6. I got exactly the same results as with the desktop 1.7.2 version -- the arrow points to the right.

But this is weird: I had not saved that file so I clicked on the link to it in my previous post to download it, & got a "We could not locate the item you are trying to view." error with Error code: 2S328/1.

No idea what that is about but I repeated the whole procedure with BBEdit & attached a fresh copy of the arrow svg file to this post. I will check again after posting it to see if that error occurs again.

EDIT: this is very strange indeed. When I first posted the svg file attachment to my earlier reply, the link appeared only inline in the sentence beginning "The file I am using is ..." & not also below the text. Now it appears in both places, with the inline link producing the error & the one below the text not doin that. 

[thomaso]

42 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I was using the regular AD 1.7.2 Mac release version, not a beta, & did not have any issues opening the file in Designer. AFAIK, there is no current Mac Affinity Designer beta -- the 1.7.2.2 customer beta is closed, having been superseded by the 1.7.2 release version.

Actually I got aware of this beta still working when I double-clicked R C-R's .afdesign, which got opened on my mac with that beta, even though the retail. app was opened already.
Also I wonder that I must have installed it on 08. Aug – though, according to the link in the quote above, it was closed on 31. July.

Interesting. it makes me wonder that this beta is still running for me – obviously it behaves different to the last Publisher beta before its retail release, which got deactivated automatically (I could not open it after the retail version was published).

However, what does it mean to this topics SVG issue which does occur in the most recent version but not in its previous beta?

So, since R C_R in macOS 10.13.6 dos not get the issue different to me in 10.12.6 the macOS could influence the occurrence of issue?
Would be interesting to know what macOS the OP @VIPStephan is running.

[Alfred]

18 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But this is weird: I had not saved that file so I clicked on the link to it in my previous post to download it, & got a "We could not locate the item you are trying to view." error with Error code: 2S328/1.

No idea what that is about but I repeated the whole procedure with BBEdit & attached a fresh copy of the arrow svg file to this post. I will check again after posting it to see if that error occurs again.

EDIT: this is very strange indeed. When I first posted the svg file attachment to my earlier reply, the link appeared only inline in the sentence beginning "The file I am using is ..." & not also below the text. Now it appears in both places, with the inline link producing the error & the one below the text not doin that. 

I also got an error with the inline link when I tried it earlier.

[thomaso]

3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I also got an error with the inline link when I tried it earlier.

Me too. Possibly just a forums or server hick-up. When I clicked R C-R's link to the beta note ( 1.7.2.2 customer beta ) I first got a message sth like "could not be found on this server". reloading did it then.

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Maybe I should have mentioned that I copied the text into the BBEdit app using its "New > Text Document > (with clipboard)" setting

I had used CotEditor.app for my test svg file. After pasting the code from clipboard CotEditor offered SVG as format.  arrow ->.svg
I don't think the issue is related to the svg file details because both test SVGs, the one of R C-R and mine, resulted in the same behavior for me and where different only by the AD version.

[R C-R]

17 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Actually I got aware of this beta still working when I double-clicked R C-R's .afdesign, which got opened on my mac with that beta, even though the retail. app was opened already.

Maybe you never quit the beta so the check for a newer retail version never happened? What happens if you quit the beta & try to restart it?

8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

I don't think the issue is related to the svg file details because both test SVGs, the one of R C-R and mine, resulted in the same behavior for me and where different only by the AD version.

I don't have a usable 1.7.2.2 (or any other .2.2) beta to test with, but my svg file created with BBEdit as I described consistently opens with a right facing arrow in all three of my 1.7.2 retail Affinity apps (& even in the 1.7.2.458 Publisher beta).

Also, I just downloaded your arrow ->.svg file & I still get a right facing arrow shape, regardless of which Affinity app I open it with. I even used the BBEdit compare feature to look for differences between your & my svg files, but this is all I got:

[MEB]

Hi VIPStephan,
I'm not sure what file you are using but the file I've created from your code (attached below) opens fine in Affinity Designer 1.7.2 and Affinity Designer Customer Beta 1.7.2.2. Go to menu View -> Reset Rotation and check if it fixes the issue. What OS are you running - macOS or Windows?

Untitled.svg

[thomaso]

18 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Maybe you never quit the beta so the check for a newer retail version never happened? What happens if you quit the beta & try to restart it?

Strange, too. My beta was not running when I double-clicked your .afdesign, instead the non-beta v 1.7.2 is 'always' opened.
Just noticed: when I double-click any of my used .afdesign files with the retail version opened it always launches the beta.

I also noticed this behavior earlier with .afpub files. I thought it might be because there the beta was younger than the retail. But now, in case of AfDesigner, this theory appears to be wrong.

[MEB]

5 hours ago, thomaso said:

Strange, indeed. When I open the SVG in AfDesigner I get the same issues. Weird, I can not manage to flip or rotate the object to make it move in the correct direction according to the arrow keys on keyboard.

But opening or placing the SVG in AfPublisher does not have that mirroring effect and shows + moves correctly.

In Designer, go to menu View -> Reset Rotation. Your canvas is upside down.

[thomaso]

17 minutes ago, MEB said:

Go to menu View -> Reset Rotation. 

@MEB, yes, that works. So it is not the SVG which gets opened as mirrored/flipped or rotated but the canvas view only.

However, then isn't it even more weird that the .afdesign of R C-R opens in my 1.7.2. in rotated canvas whereas it does not for him (and not in my beta, too). Is canvas rotation somehow saved with a document? At least it does not occur in the history. – Also strange that this canvas rotation appears to be caused by the SVG inside the .afdesign.

[MEB]

No, canvas rotation state is not saved with the document. The afdesign file R C_R posted above opens fine for me in both Affinity Designer 1.7.2 (retail) and 1.7.2.2 (Customer Beta). What OS are you running?

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

So, since R C_R in macOS 10.13.6 dos not get the issue different to me in 10.12.6 the macOS could influence the occurrence of issue?
Would be interesting to know what macOS the OP @VIPStephan is running.

 

[MEB]

Thanks. I don't believe the OS have interference here but we will check this out. Let's wait for VIPStephan reply regarding the View setting.

[VIPStephan]

Wow, so many replies! Thanks a lot for your interest and curiosity.

And thank you, MEB, resetting the canvas rotation helped. That said, it’s very unobvious that the canvas is rotated. Perhaps the UI could be improved a bit in that regard?

And just for the records: the original SVG was a simple export from Sketch (but I seem to remember that I had this with other files previously). Is there anything in an SVG that could trigger canvas rotation in AD?