Mac Trackpad Issue is Back

[mpaulsen]

I know this has been a known issue previously, but all of the prior suggestions have not helped to correct the issue.  I am not able to use multi-touch gestures with a trackpad on a Mac.  These worked previously, but have stopped working.  I believe that it may have something to do with me signing on to Fusion 360 on a Windows computer on campus as it stopped working after this.  I've tried unchecking and checking the multi-touch box, minimizing, clicking the home button, and even reinstalling Fusion 360 entirely without luck.  Any ideas?

[JetForMe]

I've just had them go away, too, and it happened after Fusion 360 unceremoniously logged me out. However, I've only logged back in on the same MacBook Pro, and never on any other machine.

[Phil.E]

It sounds like something on your systems has changed. There have been no Fusion updates lately.

I assume you have tried to put the focus back on Fusion by taking the known steps: minimize Fusion, maximize it. Close the data panel using the "grid of squares" icon in the upper left corner. Turn the view cube. Use a command. etc.

We have a fix that addresses this and it's due to release on November 9. So thanks for your patience.

Regards,

[JetForMe]

None of those things seems to change the behavior to the desired. What is it your fix addresses? It was a bit contradictory with the first part of your reply. Thanks!

[Phil.E]

Sorry about the confusion, my bad.

The first part of my reply is addressing the idea that this changed for you and others between Fusion updates. If you can think of any other software updates you might have taken around the time this started for you, that might be helpful, but I also wanted to make sure you understand, Fusion doesn't update daily. So if something changes between Fusion updates it's something on your computer such as a driver update.

The larger view of this problem is that we've known about it for a long time and have been working towards a fix that is a broader fix for a lot of these "focus" issues, on the Mac especially. So in two days you should have a much better trackpad experience. After this week's update please let us know how it goes for you.

Thanks,

[JetForMe]

I did also update to Sierra. I use Fusion 360 in waves, not daily, so it's hard to know which update caused the change. As a long-time professional Apple developer (and former Apple engineer), I can tell you that Apple has not changed the normal, modern, high-level event handling mechanisms it has had in place for many years. It may be that F360 creates its own high-level events from lower-level ones, or it naively interprets higher-level events (I'm talking about a zoom event vs. a scroll event, for example). There is clearly a lot of home-grown code in F360 that makes it very hard to have a smooth "native" macOS feel (this is true of all cross-platform efforts, which is why I oppose them so strongly as a professional developer).

As to focus issues, I'm not sure what you mean. I haven't had any real focus issues that I can think of, that were correctible via the methods you outlined above. I do have a recurring problem of Fusion jumping to the foreground (something no app should ever, ever do, especially when hidden). But that begs a longer discussion of other niggly little focus-related issues that add friction to my regular use of the app.

[Phil.E]

Hi thanks for the response. There are a few reasons for focus issues on Mac. Some are related to QT and some are related to developer rules about which API's are allowed. We plan to be delivering a fix for these tomorrow.

The fact is the "trackpad issue" never went away, so it can't be "back". So if it started happening fresh for you, that, to me, indicates something changed on your hardware. That's why I pointed out Fusion hasn't had an update since this was posted. I'm hoping to find out what changed for people who report this being 'back'.

Regarding tomorrows update:

Focus issues addressed by the coming change:

1. Fusion grabbing focus several times on launch. After this update, it will show you the splash screen once, and then remain behind if you click into another app.

2. HUD dialogs for inputting values while modeling/sketching/ etc. Those were often either not in focus, or were faux-focused (only appearing to be active and ready for text input). That should be fixed, but I can imagine there are corner cases we might have missed.

3. Trackpad focus. Clicking into the data panel puts OS focus on the process that runs the data panel. This blocks gesture input to the Fusion window until you get it's attention again. This is fixed as well in the next update.

Thanks for paying attention and let us know how it goes.

[JetForMe]

That's extraordinarily informative, thank you!

[JetForMe]

Welp, it's back again. I just started a new project while on vacation, so I don't have a mouse, and suddenly the expected trackpad behavior is gone. Two-finger drag (which should pan) zooms, and pinch-zoom doesn't work.

OH WAIT YES IT DOES. This is getting frustrating. It literally just started to behave again. Despite quitting and re-launching F360, and looking in Preferences for some setting that might affect it, I could not make it work. But I started composing this message, went back to F360 to make sure I was describing the problems precisely, and now it seems to be working.

I really like that you guys fix problems rapidly, but please spend a little more time on Mac UI issues. Thanks.

[rklopp]

I find Mac trackpad pinch zoom, etc., can be very laggy. Maybe that's the issue. Repeated pinches will seem to do nothing, and then 3 seconds later Fusion responds. I am not sure whether it's a CPU or bandwidth issue.

[Phil.E]

@rklopp You might be right about the CPU, and by extension GPU. This may have more to do with graphics performance  and the size of your model.

• Do you see the same thing when Fusion is freshly started with no design on the screen?
• Have you tried optimizing your graphics (on the graphics diagnostic tool found on the ?Help menu)?
• Are you running multiple monitors with a bunch of other apps open?

I say all this because trackpad performance will suffer along with all other performance if the model or hardware warrants it. I do find in my testing that the trackpad is more sensitive than a mouse in this regard. I'm interested in your response here because we could probably make this better but need a clear cut target to aim for.

Thanks,

[monitorZW547]

New user to fusion here, this issue seems to be related to a sensitivity setting for the zoom gesture in whatever uikit fusion is using to interface with the mac. If you use your index fingers and hold one still while moving the other, you can zoom in and out. Now go try that same movement with pretty much any other mac app and it shouldn't work . The zoom gesture should be detected by the two points moving either away or closer together. So I believe what happens is for people who tend to keep the index and middle finder separated while panning, the lag in the trailing finger causes fusion to interpret this as a zoom action. If you keep your index and middle finger tightly together the issue described is nearly impossible to replicate.

[Phil.E]

@monitorZW547

Welcome to the Fusion 360 community.

What you point out may well be the issue some people are finding. Thanks for the detailed description.

Regards,