Greg@AshwoodPhotographics

Users are usually freaking out when their canvas rotates and want to know how to stop it!   
I've just tried it and after turning the Affinity Photo preference on, it works as expected: macOS 11.2.3, Affinity Photo 1.9.1
I wonder…  Back in the days when regular desktop troubleshooting was central to my job, you would occasionally see problems like this solved by toggling the setting -  turn off the preference - maybe quit Photo for good measure and then relaunch it - then turn the preference option back on.  It might accomplish nothing, but it will only take a few moments to check out.

Hello Greg,
what OS (Mac or Win) and what app are you using? On Win10 with designer 1.9.1 and photo 1.9.1 the canvas rotation work as excpected.

That's not my email address memattie 😁

@Greg@AshwoodPhotographics
consider enabling Mouse-Wheel-Zoom in settings (no CTRL-Key needed).

kind regards
Fritz

2020-03-23 12-44-23_1.webm

Here's how it behaves in Windows. Don't know how it behaves on the Mac.
Mostly I zoom with Ctrl-MouseWheel with my selected tool hovering over the point I'm interested in. The image zooms to that point while maintaining the relative position of the point and the tool within the window. It does not move that point to the center of the window.
You can pan quickly by pressing Spacebar to activate the View (Hand) tool, but be careful as there is a bug in the Windows version that fails to return to the correct icon for the currently active tool when you release the Spacebar.
So, if you are hovering over the bottom corner and use Ctrl-MouseWheel to zoom to that point then your active area will still be in the bottom corner of the window. 
  I've seen posts from a couple of years ago that claims Alt-MouseWheel works also, but that is not my experience.
If you go to Edit/Preferences/Tools the Preferences dialog includes a checkbox that says "Use mouse wheel to zoom". Checking that causes the mousewheel to zoom and Ctrl-MouseWheel to scroll. I leave it unchecked .                                                                            
 

Select the Zoom tool and place the magnifier where you want to zoom and click Approx 8 times, you can see how much zoom has been applied at the side of the file name at the very top of the Affinity Photo window.
Don’t use the right click percentages option to zoom you will end up zoomed in to the centre of the document.
Also press and hold Option/Alt (on windows) will allow you to draw a marquee to zoom into. The magnifier icon changes to a zoom out icon  temporarily but then changes to a zoom in icon  as you draw the marquee

That's not my email address memattie 😁

Dude, I wouldn't use your email addy as a user name unless you love being spammed.

@Erica I'm on Mac and I have Control + G assigned in Keyboard Shortcuts for the Guides Manager but you can assign whatever keystroke you want as long as it doesn't clash with one already assigned, you'll know if it clashes because it will display a yellow triangle, mousing over it tells you what it's already assigned to.

Select the Crop Tool. On the Context Toolbar, click the Straighten button. Move the cursor over the image, and it will become a carpenter's level. Draw a line along something that should be horizontal or vertical.