diarbyrag

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
Holding onto any tool shortcut will now just put you in that tool temporarily until you release the shortcut key - at which point you will return to your previous tool. So for example when you are using the pen tool you could hold V to change to move tool to move your curve, and then on release be immediately back in pen tool. Another useful example would be when in Brush Tool, you could hold E to put you in Eraser and release to toggle back to Brush.

Since it has taken quite some time to even get the ability to change the ruler guide color I think you should all be very pleased. Serif are never going to please everyone since the users all have different needs and abilities, SO what you should all remember is that without them your only choice was the big A and it took them many years to change stuff in PS also. The value serif offers for their apps far outweighs a few small ( a lot of ) niggles of a few customers. However as I see it, to not have to pay every month for the rest of my life to use a product is something we should all be very grateful for. A few minor GUI irritations in your work flow will not kill you ...
... please feel free to moan about my comment btw

thanks Serif, taken a while but now I can stop moaning about it. Really liking the improvements and look forward to downloading V2.2

Apps: All
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad
There is now an option in the guide manager to change the colour of your guides. On desktop you can set this by going to guide manager (View -> Guides... or double click on any guide) and find the colour preference in the bottom left hand side of the dialog. In the example below this being set to red:

On iPad the colour setting is available from the ring towards the top of the guides panel (available from the view drop down menu or again by double tapping on a guide).

When the UI font size is set to large the layer names descenders are still cut off. Layer reads Laver ...
Also when I change the width of the panels to create a studio preset the layers panel still shows a blank line to the right of the visibility dots
I do this because it is annoying when the panels change widths, why the hell can't they all have a standard and relative width ?
( and to save anyone replying, yes I have done a reset and a drag but that is temporary and is a pain every time I open AP )
And I haven't beta tested Publisher and Designer but I'm pretty sure they will be the same, since they both have the same DNA
I have also noticed with the large UI the H & V guide position amount px descender is also cut off.
screengrabs attached

Persists in v2.0.3.

Hi there.
When UI text setting is set to large font, the descendants of the letters got clipped on same panels (as in example, the layer panel)
The issue appears in all three apps.
Not terrible, just a little annoying.

@Stephen_H, thank you for this list of important little things! I agree with most of it, especially the colour / swatches / overprinting handling issues. They really need some love... 
Some of the issues that you mentioned may have been fixed in the meantime, or there are work-arounds:
- Snapping to "round" values: using the mouse wheel over a number input field, hold down "Shift" to jump around in steps of 10. If you hold down "Ctrl", you can go by steps of 0,1 in some fields that support it.
- Proofing colors: in Photo, there actually is a "Channels" Studio -- strange that it does not exist in Designer or Publisher. 
- Previewing at export: Photo added a preview at export (not in the export persona). It's not yet great, since it's very slow and sits in a small window where you need to find out how to zoom (hint: Ctrl-mousewheel, or Ctrl-1,2....) But at least it gives some indication on what the result may be. 
There's still no export preview from Publisher or Designer. Hopefully, when it is added, it might provide some overprint/channel checking. 
- Changing the colors of margins & guides: It's possible now to change the colour of the grid and margins -- but not of the guides that you drag from the rulers (really?? or am I missing an option somewhere?)

Lots of stuff for them to work on there Stephen, don't know if any of it gets fixed in V 1.9
Guide colour has been on the must have list for over a year or more. Apparently in the beta you can now actually save workspaces with the palettes, requested that at the photoshow two years ago.
I love Affinity stuff and I'm sure they will get there, took Adobe years to add some stuff aswell
I'm sure they are listening, really want them to succeed, my mac is Adobe freeeeeee

Lots of stuff for them to work on there Stephen, don't know if any of it gets fixed in V 1.9
Guide colour has been on the must have list for over a year or more. Apparently in the beta you can now actually save workspaces with the palettes, requested that at the photoshow two years ago.
I love Affinity stuff and I'm sure they will get there, took Adobe years to add some stuff aswell
I'm sure they are listening, really want them to succeed, my mac is Adobe freeeeeee

Lots of stuff for them to work on there Stephen, don't know if any of it gets fixed in V 1.9
Guide colour has been on the must have list for over a year or more. Apparently in the beta you can now actually save workspaces with the palettes, requested that at the photoshow two years ago.
I love Affinity stuff and I'm sure they will get there, took Adobe years to add some stuff aswell
I'm sure they are listening, really want them to succeed, my mac is Adobe freeeeeee

The inability to save workspaces and pallet locations is getting annoying for me, and in separated mode docs opening at weird zoom levels is a real time waster, i'm sure you will get it fixed but I hope that it is not on your pay more for version 2 list !
 
I have used photo and designer for quite some time now and I love them both, I have told everyone I know about it, and my mac is Adobe free at last so my comments are only meant to get it improved even further, up to now I have had no reason to make any comments on the forum.

It would be a very useful setting to be able to switch between various saved personalized custom workspaces. Also when you switch to ‘Separate Mode’ and return, all your previous palette positions are wiped (and sometimes requires a restart to get them back to default even) so a saved workspace would be a real time saver.
thanks for your consideration

Love the program, hate the UI. I too can't live with dark UIs but also, the icons are too small on my 27" iMac screen. Please, can we set our own UI colours and icon sizes?

I've just set up an account on this forum specifically to make this request.
 
I'm an Illustrator user who really resents Adobe's new CC subscription scheme, so I'm interested in software that provides a realistic alternative to Adobe's core products. I've just bought Affinity Designer and so far am very impressed by what I see, feature-wise. There's a lot to like here.
 
However, I DO NOT LIKE dark user interfaces, and I was dismayed when I found that a dark interface is all that's on offer here. Maybe it's a feature of my eyes, but I find the dark colours extremely difficult to resolve and focus on, especially if I'm working on fairly bright/pale artwork (which is invariably the case).
 
UI designers seem to be under the misapprehension that having dark user interfaces is helpful because the tools 'get out of the way' and don't distract from the content. In fact, that's not true (or, at least, it's missing the point). The key thing is contrast: for ideal working conditions, every part of the screen that contains active content (i.e. artwork and tools) should be of a similar brightness to the overall intensity of the artwork. So, if you're designing dark/predominantly black artwork, your eyes need to adjust to that darkness, and hence having dark tools is helpful in that situation. But in the vast majority of cases (particularly when you're designing light artwork for use in print, typically on a white background), your eyes have to accommodate the glare of the bright colours, so the tools need to be similarly pale too. If there's a mismatch between artwork lightness and interface lightness, your eyes are constantly having to adjust as they move between the two areas, which is incredibly tiring.
 
Maybe I suffer from this more than other people, but I'm very conscious of it – and it's the reason why I hate dark user interfaces. It's not that I'm against them in terms of their looking good; it's all about usability. Ideally, the lightness of the user interface, in a design application such as this, should be adjustable on a per-document basis, because – as noted – for the best experience, its overall lightness should be similar to that of the artwork itself. (So maybe it could be tied to the document background colour for any given document.) But at the very least, given that most artwork is either printed or viewed on-screen against a light background, a light user interface should definitely be the default.
 
Frankly it amazes me that Adobe has got this wrong in recent times. It seems to be insisting on dark user interfaces itself, by default, which is barmy. But the fact that Adobe's started doing this doesn't mean that other developers should blindly follow its lead. Dark user interfaces may look cool, but they're actually a really bad idea, especially if enforced. Please, developers, THINK about such things! Take design decisions for the right reasons, rather than just to follow the current trend.
 
At least Adobe does still offer the full range of dark to light in its user interface preferences, so it's still possible to make them look like they used to look (black text on pale grey) – which is massively better than the dark default.
 
Unfortunately, Affinity Designer doesn't have this feature. OK, at least I can set the UI gamma. I've put it up to its brightest possible setting and it helps a little bit, but it's not nearly enough. At minimum, there needs to be a similar alternative to approach from the white end of the scale: i.e. to start with a very bright interface and darken it down.
 
Please think about acting on this as a matter of urgency, Affinity developers. Much as I'd love to see more 'real' features being developed for this excellent-looking product, this UI issue is, to me, surprisingly important because it impinges on the usability of the entire application. While the interface continues to be excessively dark and overly hard to read, it's going to materially hamper my ability to use the software.
 
We don't need skins and alternative icons. The basic look is fine. We just need to be able to lighten it right up so that the tools and buttons use dark text on a pale grey background. Thanks for listening.