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Thibault_Bagot

Allow standard Focus Mode for custom visuals that support Advanced Edit Mode

Submitted by on ‎04-14-2026 03:07 AM

Problem

In Power BI today, any custom visual that supports Advanced Edit Mode (for example Deneb, Charticulator, and other editor-style visuals) loses access to standard Focus Mode.

Clicking the Focus Mode icon no longer performs the expected behaviour of zooming the visual to fill the canvas. Instead, it immediately opens the visual in Advanced Edit Mode.

This behaviour is imposed by the Power BI host and cannot be controlled by the visual developer. As a result:

  • Report consumers cannot use Focus Mode to inspect complex visuals
  • Authors and viewers experience inconsistent UX compared to native visuals
  • Visuals that are primarily analytical (not always being edited) pay a usability penalty simply because they support editing

Why this matters

Editor‑style custom visuals are increasingly used far beyond initial authoring:

  • Deneb visuals are often parameter‑driven, interactive, and fully dynamic at run‑time
  • Charticulator visuals are commonly consumed, not edited, by report viewers
  • These visuals benefit more than native visuals from Focus Mode due to:
    • Dense layouts
    • Custom scales
    • Fine typography
    • Responsive rendering

However, today users lose Focus Mode entirely for these visuals — even though an explicit Edit command already exists in the visual’s context menu (three dots).

Requested change

Please allow standard Focus Mode to remain available for custom visuals that support Advanced Edit Mode.

Possible implementation options (any of these would work):

  • Decouple Focus Mode from Advanced Edit Mode
  • Introduce a capability flag that allows:
    • Focus Mode = zoom only
    • Edit Mode = editor lifecycle
  • Allow visual developers to specify:
    • “Advanced Edit via menu only”
    • “Do not hijack Focus Mode”

This would preserve:

  • Expected Power BI UX
  • Backwards compatibility
  • Editor functionality for advanced visuals

Who benefits

  • Power BI report consumers (better analysis experience)
  • Advanced report authors
  • Custom visual developers
  • Popular certified visuals such as:
    • Deneb
    • Charticulator
    • Other authoring‑capable custom visuals

This is a platform‑level improvement that enables more powerful visuals without reducing usability.


@dm-p 

Status: New
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1 Comment (1 New)
Comments
dm-p
Super User
Super User
‎04-14-2026 03:25 AM

I can't speak for the other visuals but as far as I know, this isn't something MS has done, at least for Deneb. Deneb's behavior can be traced to a recent change in 1.9.0 which would open the editor UI when focus mode was invoked. This would only happen when viewing in Desktop or having a report in edit mode in the service. The work to fix this (https://github.com/deneb-viz/deneb/issues/603) has been approved by MS and is already being deployed (as 1.9.1). This should be live within the next week. Unless I have misunderstood, you'll need to discuss with the appropriate visual vendor to get this resolved.