2 regression bugs in version 9 compared to 8 (mouse pointers and stylus writing)

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Fri Jan 29, 2021 1:57 pm

I am experiencing 2 bugs since I updated to version 9. They are still present in build 351.0.

1) The program's individual mouse pointers (e.g. hand-tool, or cross hairs of the typewriter) are not DPI agnostic any more. That means that in a multi screen setup where the primary monitor has a 200% zoom factor (and thus displays 192dpi) but an attached external monitor is on 100% with regular 96dpi, these mouse pointers appear in double size in PDFXChangeEditor Plus on the external monitor. This does not apply to the regular mouse pointer (as I guess you fall back on Windows there).

2) a stylus pen issue that was not present in version 8 is the following: With the Preference "Automatically switch to Pencil or Eraser tool with Stylus" activated and "Allow Draw with a Finger Touch" de-activated, regular writing with the stylus pen is not possible in both regular and full-screen mode, because very frequently the just previously written letter is selected and then the pen movement on the screen that is intended to write the next letter actually moves the previously (unintentionally selected) letter around. Interestingly the then selected piece also opens the comment pop-up box. The setting "Auto-select newly created comment" is de-activated. When writing with a stylus pen, either in "Automatically switch to Pencil or Eraser tool with Stylus" or in regular "pencil tool" the stylus should ( and did in version 8 ) actually always write instead of act as mouse to select any objects.

Especially bug 2 is very annoying as I frequently use PDFXChange Editor to annotate PDFs on the tablet mode of my 2-in-1 Dell. I would appreciate a timely fix.

Regards
Kai

Sat Jan 30, 2021 2:10 am

Sorry that you are experiencing issues with V9.

In regard the issue #1. What value you have for the option "UI Scale for screen resolution..." in Preferences->General? If it is "System scale"
can you please try if other options will work for you? (Please note, application restart is required when this option is changed).

In regards #2 issue: I believe it is already fixed for the next build, but will definitely check that again as soon as I can.

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Mon Feb 01, 2021 1:51 pm

Thank you for your quick reply, Ivan.

Both of the suggested settings have more severe negative effects. I can describe these as follows:
- Operating conditions: Primary monitor on 192dpi (zoom setting of 200% in Windows), external monitor on 96dpi (100%)
- System Scale: All controls size correctly on both monitors, but all PDFXChange specific mouse-pointers appear doubled in size on the external monitor
- No Scale (Normal DPI): Normal is considered 96dpi I guess, as everything works ok on the external monitor, BUT on the laptop monitor the whole control interface with all controls appear in 50% of the regular size - not possible to work with that
- No Scale (System DPI): System is determined by the primary monitor (which is my laptop screen) and thus it all works ok on the laptop monitor, BUT the whole control interface with all controls appears in 200% of the regular size on the external monitor - not possible to work with that.

Thus, the suggested issue did not solve the issue, I revert back to 'System Scale' for now, as this has 'only' the mouse pointers as issue for me.

Looking forward to get the next release with the stylus fixed!

Thanks again
Kai

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:12 pm

I updated to "Version: 9.0, build 352.0 (Enhanced OCR) (Feb 4 2021; 17:55:44) today" but the issue with the Stylus-Pen selecting the immediately preceding written comment instead of writing continuously as desired remains to be an issue. I can not test the second issue right now as I do not have the external monitor connected, but will update on that too.

Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:09 pm

Hello Kai,

Cannot reproduce such problem with Stylus in 352 build. Can you please check if "Exclusive mode" function for the pencil tool is active? This mode should prevent the current tool from selecting already written comments.

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Mon Feb 08, 2021 8:36 pm

Thanks Corwin.

I believe that solved the problem - the "Pencil Tool Properties" were set on ExclusiveMode=true, but I realized the General Properties not, and as I have the setting "Automatically switch to Pencil or Eraser tool with Stylus" activated, apparently that made the difference.

Any other update on the screen DPI awareness regarding the mouse pointers? Working with external monitors today, this is still an issue after updating to build 352.0.

Thanks again,
Kai

Post by **Paul - Tracker Supp** » Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:23 pm

Good to hear about the Exclusive Mode Kai, we will have to wait to hear from Corwin about the DPI, it sounds like it did not make it into 352.

Tue Feb 16, 2021 5:44 am

We have found a way to fix the issue with the cursor size. The fix will be included in the next build.

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:14 am

Thanks for the confirmation, that sounds great.

Post by **TrackerSupp-Daniel** » Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:35 am

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:28 am

I have tested the pen with "Exclusive Mode" setting again today and found it is still an issue in v 9.0 build 352.0

When I have the "Pen tool" on "Exclusive Mode" and on "Keep Selected", it allows me to write quite normally - while I write fast. Once I pause and the comment object is created, the stylus will then select the new text right away again what is not intended. For your better understanding of the issue I have recorded this behavior. At the end I have deselected "Keep Selected" for even better demonstration, that the "Exclusive Mode" is not keeping the pen selected:

210313BugPenDemo.zip: (4.04 MiB) Downloaded 57 times

Post by **TrackerSupp-Daniel** » Mon Mar 15, 2021 6:54 pm

Hi, kai_jh

The video appears to have been corrupted, as none of my video players are capable of playing it, but from your description, it sounds like you have this option enabled:

This will automatically select the comment when it is finally created, which happens with the pen tool after a pause. since exclusive mode only ignores content which is not currently selected, it does not apply to this, now selected, comment, and would lead to moving the comment.

If you disable this option, it should resolve that trouble.

Kind regards,

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Mon Mar 15, 2021 10:14 pm

Daniel,
this option was not selected, I double checked that.
The original video was way to large to upload, I scaled it down using the VLC player and that did play it without issue too.
I am happy to demonstrate live on a Teams or Zoom call too if that helps.
Any other ideas?
Kai

Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:48 pm

Hi Kai.

Can you confirm that the problem with annoyingly selecting a newly created line instead of creating a new one - is it present even if you manually activated the Pencil tool from the toolbar? Or it is only when you have a Hand tool activated before and then you moved the stylus over the page and the option 'Auto activate the Pencil/Eraser tool' is enabled and we activate the Pencil tool automatically for you? In that case the auto-activated Pencil tool inherits the "Exclusive mode" flag from the Hand too and ignores its own Exclusive-flag.

Perhaps it was a poor decision to inherit that flag - Maybe in the next build we will stop that and the Pencil tool will always use its own Exclusive-flag, regardless of how it was activated - manually or automatically...

Cheers.

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Wed Mar 17, 2021 2:02 am

Hello Vasyl,

that sounds like a very plausible explanation. I tried the following:
A) When I put the hand-tool on exclusive mode, the problem disappears when I switch to the stylus, so yes it is inheriting the exclusive setting. Problem is, that I would like the hand tool to be able to select comments for deletion. Your suggestion of not inheriting would be highly appreciated.
B) I tried to test directly what you suggested, but I realized that whenever I manually choose the pen and draw a line that after this first line the tool switches back to hand mode. I don't know what setting is causing this behavior, but with this I can not test, whether I would be able to draw the next line rather than selecting it. I tried that with both on/off of for option 'Auto activate the Pencil/Eraser tool' and also with all utils: stylus/mouse/finger-touch, but it will not let me use the pencil tool for more than one line, it always switches right back to the hand tool. That looks like an issue for me as well, I don't typically run into this in my use-cases though.

My test (A) has shown to me that your suggested solution would really fix the issue, so I would be very glad to see that implemented in the next build.

Thank you,
Kai

Wed Mar 17, 2021 6:06 pm

I tried to test directly what you suggested, but I realized that whenever I manually choose the pen and draw a line that after this first line the tool switches back to hand mode.

Seems you have turned off the "Keep Selected" option for the Pencil tool. It is turned on by default...

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:04 pm

Correct, thanks for pointing me to that. I initially only checked the settings but now realized this flag is in the properties.

I was thus able to test your initial ask and can also confirm there: If I leave the hand-tool on not exclusive, switch to the pen-tool manually (not via the automatic pencil on stylus setting) with exclusive mode activated for the pencil, there is no problem and the desired behavior.

Thanks
Kai

Post by **Tracker Supp-Stefan** » Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:04 pm

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Tue Apr 20, 2021 1:40 pm

I was super exited to finally see the update rolled out this morning. I am now on version 9.0 build 353.0 but can not tell you how disappointed I was that the stylus commenting was screwed up again from what I would consider a normal commenting behavior with the stylus pen.
Settings:
"Automatically switch to Pencil or Eraser tool with Stylus" activate
"Allow Draw with a Finger Touch" de-activated
"Allow Draw with a Mouse" de-activated
Hand-Tool: exclusive mode de-activated
Pen Too: exclusive mode activated

Behavior: I see there is a change from the previous version: when I draw a line and draw the next line somewhere else it works and I will not be able to select and un-intentionally move around any previously drawn content. BUT immediately when you finish a line or letter drawn, lift the stylus off the screen a bit but not move it away, PDFXchangeEditor switches to the arrow mouse cursor and selects the just drawn content like you would with hand mode. That is not supposed to happen and hinders natural writing! I need to make sure every single letter is spaced apart from the previous. As soon as I immediately touch the screen to write the next letter where I left off the previous, writing does not work but it moves around the just finished drawing. That is so annoying.

Please provide a fix (or some workaround through settings?) for this with a quick update, I hope I do not have to wait 2 months again until the next regular update roles out.

Thank you!

Tue Apr 20, 2021 4:44 pm

Hi kai_jh.

Seems you have turned off the KeepSelected option for the Pencil tool (turned on by default). Please enable it back - it may help you. If not please let us know.
Sorry for inconveniences.

Cheers.

kai_jh · Post by **kai_jh** » Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:29 pm

Thank you Vasyl,
yes that property is hidden but it solved my issue. Thank you for the quick response!
Kai

Post by **TrackerSupp-Daniel** » Tue Apr 20, 2021 10:32 pm