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I have a laptop with support for active pen and I use Microsoft Whiteboard (WB) to draw stuff.

Recently I noticed this strange behavior when selecting colors (so as not to confuse with "pen"):

image

The behavior can be described as this:

  • When I click or tap another color with mouse or finger (finger painting is constantly off), that color becomes selected and all other colors are deselected.
  • When I click another color with the pen, both the new color and the original color becomes selected, but only the new color is active when drawing lines with pen.

It seems like there's a "dummy color" and "active color", both appearing as "selected" in the toolbar, with clicking (mouse) or tapping (finger) changing both, and clicking (pen) changing only "active color".

I haven't found a description for this behavior in Microsoft Whiteboard Help. Does anyone know what it is?

MS WB version 19.11104.4496.0 (downloaded from Microsoft Store in Windows 10 v1909)

iBug
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1 Answers1

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Today I came across the same 'problem'. I also didn't find anything about it except this unanswered question. Therefore I had to guess it somehow:

It appears, that whith two colors being selected there is a primary and a secondary.

The primary will always be the colour of the first line and the secondary will be used for any consecutive line as long, as the pen isn't lifted for longer than approximately half a second in between. In that case, the first color would be waiting to be inevitably drawn next... ;)

Yet, I can't tell how this ordering is determined or rather set. So far it appears arbitrary to me.

I also don't have a single idea what to use this 'function' for... :D maybe someone else does...

Florian Reuter
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  • Looks like I can get back to one pen by holding onto it for some time. (be careful not to move too much...) still got no idea what this might be useful for – Florian Reuter May 15 '20 at 10:25