Inspiring

Question

Anything related to text and typing is occasionally broken

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
September 21, 2021
9 replies
2367 views

This issue has been posted before. In fact, it has been multiple times. I myself have posted this issue once. I have had contact with support about it, Adobe employees in this community have been in touch with me about this issue. I've sent logs, video captures, system specifications to Adobe employees. This issue has been here for at least two years and has never been resolved. Any attempt to cooperate with Adobe staff resulted in a stub, and then just silence. Reaching out by asking questions about how we can help is not answered. Let me be clear: this is critically blocking. Adobe XD is becoming a pain to use. And if I may believe this community, many are with me. I can only speak for Windows users, as I don't have experience with macOS. I dearly hope that Windows users are in fact equally prioritized as macOS users.

This can't be discarded. We need to solve this once and for all.

Just to give an indication on how relevant this issue is, just browse through the community. There are plenty of threads which are solved without resolving the issue.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-xd-discussions/design-ui-text-fields-in-xd-break-every-once-in-a-while/m-p/12311111/page/2#M53974

After sharing logs and videos, it seemed to be solved in an update. Time has told that this was not true. The "solved"-mark should be removed.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-xd-discussions/text-cursor-doesn-t-appear-while-editing-text-in-xd/td-p/10933808

Only assumptions here, no real cause. What's more, temporary workarounds are suggested. This can't be accepted as a solution. The "solved"-mark should be removed.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-xd-discussions/unable-to-edit-paste-delete-text-in-xd-text-fields/td-p/11193574

Here, the issue is reported numerous times. Adobe staff reached out, but there is no definitive answer or resolution. The correct answer is a message by a staff member requesting a remote session. This is simply an open end, no solution! Once again, the "solved"-mark should be removed.

Please note that this issue has been there for a long time, so it's been here through many versions of Windows, many versions of XD and many versions of Adobe Creative Cloud. Moreover, specifications of computers have been shared numerous times in the posts mentioned above.

Here is a request for Adobe staff: let's solve this once and for all. We need to invest time into this issue. Let's not go into radio silence if no direct resolution can be found: we need to get to the bottom of this.

Yes, I've lost my patience, but ranting does not get me anywhere. It only leaves me and many others with a broken application.

So: I'm here to help.

This topic has been closed for replies.

GillianGahagan27

Participating Frequently

Yep, this happens to me too. I'm at the end of my semester finishing up the big project in my UX/UI class, and every hour or so, I cannot type or select anything. The selection thing is solved by using another tool and then going back to the selection tool, but when this issue strikes, I have to do that every. time. I want to select something. It's so frustrating. It's boinking me over at a crucial time.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

How does the team of Adobe XD view the news about Microsoft officially deprecating UWP (link)? I have a feeling that quirks of the platform/framework that is UWP won't ever be prioritized by Microsoft anymore. Just security updates and bug fixes in the future. Realistically speaking, would a text highlight bug be of any importance to Microsoft? I don't think so. We are screwed, unless the XD team decides to move to another framework on Windows, which I have a hard time believing however much I would like them to try to do so.

Man, this sucks.

Spas K.

Community Expert

Seems like it will not be too hard to migrate to the Windows App SDK. Hopefully this finally resolves the issues we are currently experiencing with the UWP fiasco. I doubt Microsoft will waste time addressing issues with UWP apps. Instead, we will have to wait until Xd is migrated onto this new "platform", and hope for the best.

Chris W. Griffith

Community Expert

The short answer is there is known issue on Windows that is unfortunately a Microsoft bug. It is identified and a fix is in the pipeline. I have no knowledge of the timeline for the release. With that said, it sucks.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

If we know this is in the pipeline, can we nudge Microsoft into giving us a timeline, a commitment? I feel that it has been identified for two years already, so it might as well be in the pipeline for two years already. I actually considered going to Mac, as I assume this issue only applies to UWP, but that's not worth it for me. Also, we're tied into the Adobe ecosystem too tightly to break out of it with XD. You're right, it sucks, but I wonder if there is something we can do to either speed up the process or get some perspective on this issue.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

Here's a longstanding link: it perfectly illustrates the sentiment regarding this issue.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-xd-discussions/unable-to-enter-text-in-adobe-xd-bug/td-p/10909422

Spas K.

Community Expert

Got a comment from the team yesterday, which was pretty much the same as the correct answer from that thread. It's an issue with UWP / Windows, and they're waiting on Microsoft to fix it.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

Makes me sad. So I as an Adobe customer even has less influence now on trying to get this solved. But: any word on how they approach their escalation to Microsoft? It feels like their contact has dried up, because there is no progression for at least 2 years.

I don't like to give up, especially because it is such a nasty bug. There is no perspective, no end in sight. Yet, there must be a way to get this train going.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

Example 3:

0:13 = when I try to input "+ 20" to add 20px to the current value in the Width property field. Value is briefly set but overridden by the previous value. The property field does not get properly focused or highlighted. Clicking in another input field does not properly focus or highlight that field either. What follows, is curious:
- 0:24 = Trying to add text to the Height property field results in text being added to the previously-selected Width field (I made a typo, inputting "_").
- 0:25 = Pressing backspace DOES remove a character from the Height property field. Deletion and text input are disconnected at this point.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

Example 2 of the glitch: here, I can't seem to escape text editing mode either. I'm clicking wildly all across the window (on the canvas, inside of property fields, clicking on buttons), but the text layer retains its focus. At some point (0:25) I manage to highlight text inside of the text layer, which allows me to escape text editing mode. Please notice the property fields on the right: Width, Height, X-position and Y-position fields have white text color, as if they're highlighted, yet, the blue highlight is gone. This "pseudo-highlight" still causes issues from time to time: trying to input text in some other field/layer sometimes causes one of the pseudo-highlighted text fields to receive the input instead EXCEPT FOR deletion. So, pressing backspace still deletes text in the field you are focused on, but new text only gets added in this pseudo-highlighted field.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

Example 1 of the glitch: working with text in either text layers or simply the UI of Adobe XD at some point always causes issues. What's going on here:

0:05 - 0:15 = me trying to edit the text layer with the Font Awesome icon font. Highlighting text does not work, so I click outside of the text layer. Clicking outside of the text layer does not result in escaping from text editing. Neither can I select/manipulate anything else on the canvas.
0:15 - 0:30 = trying to shift focus away from the text layer by clicking and highlighting property fields in the UI of Adobe XD. This results in highlights in multiple fields. Mind you that this affects text input as well. Sometimes, trying to input text in one field results in changes in one of the previously-selected fields!

Spas K.

Community Expert

It is likely an issue with UWP which would require the dev team to re-write and change too many things to fix. It's been like 3 years since this started happening (probably a Windows update that changed/deprecated some library and broke it). It's not the only unresolved issue concerning the interface, there are more. People are especially complaining about this issue every other day, so if it was an easy fix it would have been resolved by now.

Xd shares and uses assets and code with the CC app and other apps in the package, so any changes affect more than one product / application, which they will also have to take into consideration. I even think I've had this happen on a text field in the CC app.

Since November 2019, when they released component states, updates have been pretty slow and small, maybe due to covid, but idk. I'm pretty sure they know about the issue and where it's coming from, but decide to not invest in fixing it for some reason.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

Would a rewrite be necessary at all? How about fixes in the code base to avoid the peculiarities of the chosen framework? Don't get me wrong; I know how hard it can be to work with the UWP framework. I am designer of an application that has also been written in UWP (we use it for years), and the devs stumble upon issues every now and then as well. We also solve it by working around these quirks. And so far, we're doing fine. We're looking for ways to rewrite it, sure, but there haven't been much issues we could not fix. Soothing the pain of our users is also part of our strategy. If that improves the UX at a much smaller cost than the framework issue itself, that's worth it.

If the Adobe development team uses UWP, then text highlight might not be the only related quirk that causes annoyance. Take the corrupted UI icons for example (which I am experiencing as well, as we speak). As I see it: the longer you wait, the harder it gets. Postponing it all and instead focusing on extending, extending, extending is just a matter of denying the issue. Applications grow ever more complex, and if you happen to have issues in the figurative foundation of it all, you're bound to be in a pickle one way or another. At some point, you're filling a bucket that's full of holes.

Something needs to be done.

Spas K.

Community Expert

You seem more familiar with it, I'm just guessing. But there are no such issues on the other Adobe apps I'm using, with the difference that Xd is built on UWP, so that's my assumption. The UI has been clunky from the start. Simple layers rearranging in the layers panel was failing 50% of the time. Sometimes it would freeze the program. These problems were fixed some time ago, but they did hang around for months.

The team had also employed that "touch-friendly" philosophy for some reason, you probably remember we didn't even have the top menu on Windows, it was brought back just last year, after people complaining about it over and over.

I will be asking the dev team for comments on this and other issues around MAX in a few weeks, since they engage with us more around the event. Hopefully we get a concrete answer.

jeroenr92072295Author

Inspiring

Another link:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-xd-discussions/adobe-xd-will-randomly-not-let-me-type-or-edit-text/td-p/11937048

Over here, community members share their temporary workarounds, no real solutions.

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