dougkerr

Hi, Mark, Thanks for the notice about AF beta 1.5.4.41 I was a little surprised to see this in your message intro: Requirements: A valid product key, issues when Windows version was purchased. given that this is a beta test version. And anyway, how could I have already purchased the Windows version, which I had thought had not been released? (At least, I got no notice of such. I would have expected, for example, to be told that it was released, and for a limited time only I could buy it at this reduced price, yadda yadda.) But when I went to install this beta version, the installer asked for my product key. What am I missing here? Did I sleep through something consequential? ************ UPDATE Well, I have just installed beta version 1.5.0.42. So - NEVER MIND! Thanks. Best regards, Doug

Nezumni, verysame, Thanks for the reference to the FastStone viewer. I had not been aware of it. It seems very useful. Doug

I am currently working with AP/W beta 1.5.0.37 I draw a rectangular selection marquee with the Rectangular Marquee Tool (with the mode set to "New"). After it is done, I can drag on any place in it to move the marquee. Sometimes, if I lay the mouse on an edge of the marquee, I can drag that edge to resize the marquee. (The mouse pointer changes to show me that this is what I can do.) Sometimes I can't. What am I missing here? I note that earlier in my testing, I drew an elliptical marquee. I tried to see how I might resize it, and I couln;t find any way. Now I can no longer resize a rectangular marquee. I closed AP, loaded an image, and made a rectangular marquee. I cannot resize it. Doug

I am currently working with AP/W beta 1.5.0.37 The MRU list (File|Open Recent) does not seem to be working properly. It exhibits a list of files that was probably current a few days ago. Files I have since opened do not appear. When I use "Clear", the next time I visit "Open Recent", the old list is still there. And "Clear" is grayed out. If I then open another wholly-new file and then visit Open Recent, that file is not shown, but Clear is now lit. But it has no effect. Do I need to clear out something in the Registry to get this back on track? UPDATE I closed AP and then opened it again. I looked at the Open Recent list, and it was empty. I opened a file, and see that it is now in the Open Recent list. Further testing suggests that the use of Clear clears the list (insofar as what gets saved to the Registry upon close of the app) but the display of the list does not update until the app is restarted. Ah, yes, if I open a file, it does not appear in the list, but will upon restart. This is not desirable behavior. For example, I may have opened some file, worked on it a bit, saved it, and closed it. But then I think of something else I want to do. It would be nice to be able to "recall" the file from the MRU list. Doug

In my early tests with AP/Windows Beta 1.5.0.35, I find it very "sluggish" in response. I am running AP under Windows 7 Professional (SP1) on a system with an Intel Core Duo CPU (2.66 MHz clock) and 4.00 GB of installed RAM. The display system is an NVIDIA GeForce 210. The results I describe here were obtained while there was no other foreground application running. Last night I started some exercises that involved creating a selection. First I created a rectangular selection with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. I moved the mouse at a moderate speed. I found the marquee creation to be very "jerky", with the marquee jumping to catch up with the mouse position. Later I tried to make a selection matching a certain object in my image, using the Selection Brush Tool. Again, the response was so "jerky" that I just couldn't really do the task. I have also noted that AP seems to take a really long time to load a modest-sized JPEG image file. Of course, it is always possible that my system has some type of infestation that leads to this performance problem by AP. I note that in my several other graphics programs (with the exception of Photoshop), I get problem-free creation of selection marquees and the like. Of course, some of these are very old, so we might expect them to be more responsive. (How ironic is that!) UPDATE I just downloaded and installed AP beta 1.5.0.37. I sense that the problems I describe above are now less severe! I will report back after further testing. Doug

Hi, Chris, Thanks. Doug

Hi, Sounds good. Thanks. Doug

Hi, On the Mac and OS thing, sure. Regarding the "Abobe manners", I never thought of these (as I try and use as few Adobe apps as possible, with the exception of Acrobat),. I see now how these work in AP. I"m never quite sure what zoomage "100%" is, but I see I get it with a double click on the "magnifying glass". And I see I get "fit the screen" with a double click on the pan hand. Yes, and I never pay nearly enough attention to "navigators". Thanks for filling me in on these "secret handshakes". Speaking of "just what is 100% zoomage", I am also interested in the "pixel size" zoomage. One might think that this would be "1:1" image pixels to display pixels, but it is not. Ah, but it looks as if that only works out if the display scaling is set to 100%, while mine is 125%. Aargh! Best regards, Doug

I will put two related topics here. 1. Both the area of function buttons along the top of the screen and the area of function buttons at the left side of the screen are called "the toolbar". It would avoid confusion if they had different names (perhaps one should be called "the toolbox"). 2. With regard to the left-side "toolbar": It is nice to be able to control whether its repertoire of buttons is presented in a single column or in two (or even more) columns. If I have quite a few buttons in my left-side toolbar, and decide that I should go for a two column arrangement (perhaps because I am running out of vertical space and plan to add more buttons), and make the selection for a two-column arrangement, the buttons are repositioned in a "row-first" way. That is, if "hand" was at the top, with "arrow" just beneath it, now "hand" will be at the top of the leftmost column and "arrow" at the top of the rightmost column. My own preference would be that in this case, the rearrangement would be "column first". In my example, "hand" would be at the top of the leftmost column and "arrow" just beneath it. My rationale for that is this. If I have several buttons of the same category (perhaps the different shapes of selection marquees), and they were vertically consecutive in the original "single column" arrangement, then when I go to a two-column arrangement I still expect them to be vertically consecutive. But others may prefer to think that still all the buttons should run essentially "top down" in their original sequence, just zigging and zagging between the two columns (the current arrangement in AP) My preference may perhaps come from the fact that in several of my graphic apps, I can make multiple toolbars, and I typically make them each vertical and single column, and adjacent, so when I have two columns that is actually two single-column toolbars. And of course all "related" buttons are in a certain toolbar, so they are in the same column. And perhaps most other AP users will not have such a preference. Doug

Hi, Sure. And I find that, for each app, I use an inexplicable combination of KB shortcuts for some things, toolbar buttons for others, and menu items for others. Then, one day, I will change that, and start using a KB shortcut for something that, on that app, I had previously usually done with a button. I guess this is a part of the human condition. But in so many apps I have become "spoiled" by the available great flexibility in customizing the various toolbars. Doug

Hi, Chris, I dunno exactly what you mean "this is on the Mac side". Was I on the wrong forum? I'm not sure what you mean that is a feature of the O/S. I can't imagine that in my other apps that offer this that it is not managed by the app. For example, when this is exercised, the image window is usually not made to fill the available "screen space" but rather to fill it with some arbitrary "margin". It seems unlikely that the O/S API would offer such. But then I am not very much of a programmer. By the way, as I report above, I discovered that AP does in fact offer this functionality. There is just no button to do it (but there is a KB shortcut). Thanks for looking into this. Doug

I am a little surprised (perhaps by comparison with every other graphic program I have ever used) that the Save as function only seems to allow saving the image as an Affinity file (*.afphoto). To save an image (even if loaded as a JPEG file) as a JPEG file, for example, one must use the Export dialog. This of course makes a certain amount of sense, given that this process, for any given destination filetype, involves a certain specialized array of settings. And, in contrast, there is no need for any settings when saving as an Affinity file. Its just "unexpected." I also wonder whether the filetype extension "afphoto" is a good idea. Of course is its nicely self-explanatory. But often users have the columns in various file display windows set so that filetype extensions longer than, perhaps, four characters are truncated. But perhaps this is just the playing out of the "long filename" paradigm. Best regards, Doug

It would indeed be nice to be able to place on the top toolbar buttons for Open, Save, Save as, etc. Doug

Hi, Harry (?) Ooh! I didn't know that. Neat - O A very few things can be put on the top toolbar with View>Customize toolbar. But most of them are already there by default. Thanks. Best regards, Doug

Oh, dear. I see it now - "Zoom to fit" Ctrl+0. Also "Pixel size" - Ctrl + 9 Duh! Well, we old geezers are sometime slow to catch on! Doug

No, my point was not how to get a larger working space (although it is nice to know how to do that). It is how to get the "zoomage" that makes the image essentially fill the working space, the situation in which I do much of my work. Thanks. Doug

In several of my graphic applications, there is (or can be placed) on the toolbar a button that makes the entire document essentially fill the available screen area. In Affinity Photo beta 1.5.0.35, I do not find such a button, nor any way to add it. In fact, there does not seem to be any menu commend to do that. If I am missing where this is, I would be glad to learn of that. If not, I feel it would be very desirable to have a button (or keyboard shortcut, or both) that would makes the entire document essentially fill the available screen area. It might also be worthwhile to have a button (or at least a menu item) that displayed the document "pixel-for-pixel", as that is often a needed situation. By the way, I think that the ability to save and then recall "views" is very useful. It does not however conveniently fulfill the capability I discuss above. Best regards, Doug

Greetings! I have just today began working with Affinity Photo (Windows), beta version 1.5.0.35. My platform is Windows 7 Professional. I rarely use Photoshop. Most of my photo editing is done with the very old Picture Publisher, Version 10. In Picture Publisher, if I am making a selection marquee (which in that application is also a mask and also a crop frame), I use a mouse left-button drag in the familiar way. If, while making the marquee, I find I want its position (meaning the location of the corner other than the one I am dragging) to be different, I press and hold the right mouse button (in addition to keeping the left button pressed). Then the mouse movement moves the nascent marquee (while its size, for the moment, remains unchanged). This is an extremely convenient functionality. The very same functionality is available in CorelDraw (a vector illustration application). In Photoshop (I have "CS5"), there is a less convenient form of this same functionality. There, to shift to the "mouse changes position" mode while creating a selection marquee or cropping frame, I can press and hold the space bar. I have not been able to identify any corresponding functionality in Affinity Photo beta 1.5.0.35 for either the selection marquee or the cropping frame. I would very much like to see this functionality available, preferably in the "right mouse button" form, but if not that, using some other gesture. And of course if it exists already, I would like to learn of that. Best regards, Doug Kerr

I note that if I begin to "paint", I get a note telling me that the Assistant has created a new "raster" layer for me, and that I am now painting on it. But that layer is designated "pixel" in the layer management panel. Of course, "pixel layer" and "raster layer" are reasonable synonyms, but the apparently-arbitrary use of both terms could well confuse the user. Of course, I may be missing something! It's my first day with this wondrous thing. ************ A related matter is that I am able to add a "layer" or a "pixel layer", using buttons on the layer management panel. And the two kinds of layers are labeled just like the buttons, "layer" or "pixel layer". But is a "layer" (not "pixel layer") a vector layer? If so, should it perhaps be called that? Or is it something else altogether? And if so, is there such a thing as a vector layer? And if so, how do I make one. Again, of course, I may be missing something! Best regards, Doug Kerr

Gotcha. Thanks. Doug

Hi, Mark, Microsoft says: The desktop composition feature, introduced in Windows Vista, fundamentally changed the way applications display pixels on the screen. When desktop composition is enabled, individual windows no longer draw directly to the screen or primary display device as they did in previous versions of Windows. Instead, their drawing is redirected to off-screen surfaces in video memory, which are then rendered into a desktop image and presented on the display. Desktop composition is performed by the Desktop Window Manager (DWM). Through desktop composition, DWM enables visual effects on the desktop as well as various features such as glass window frames, 3-D window transition animations, Windows Flip and Windows Flip3D, and high resolution support. The Desktop Window Manager runs as a Windows service. It can be enabled and disabled through the Administrative Tools Control Panel item, under Services, as Desktop Window Manager Session Manager. So I looked there, and it shows that in my system, the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager is running. But perhaps that does not mean that the functionality that Affinity needs is active. Wears an old guy out just to think about it! Doug

Hi, Mark, Makes sense. So, in Windows 7, can DWM Composition be enabled other than be adopting an Aero theme? I have read that there are some performance disadvantages to its being in operation. Thanks. Doug

Hey, Mark, I was interested to learn that there are no Aero themes as such in Windows 8 or 8.1. How does that affect this story? I also note that I have an NVIDIA graphics card and its drivers are evidently not in the Intel WDDM family (as the Intel process for determining which driver is in place just does not seem to apply). Does that affect the story? Thanks. Doug

Hi, Mark, Thanks. I would encourage you to make that possible. I am very interested in the product, but I am not so eager that I want to contemplate a complete upheaval of my UI to one based on a qualifying "Aero" theme. This impacts ever so many aspects of the UI. Thanks. Best regards, Doug

Hi, Mark, Gotcha. Do I gather from your comments that this restriction might be planned for the beta only, to assure that beta test reports are under an "optimal" configuration? If so, is it possible that the limitation might be relieved for the release (presumably subject to the caveat that a non-Aero context might result in less-than-optimum performance)? Thanks. Best regards, Doug