Granddaddy

The obvious refutation of this ancient argument is that the first response to many posts is:
What Affinity application are you using?
What operating system are you using?
So one must read the first three or four posts on every thread before reaching a point where one can begin to answer the question being asked by the OP. 
This issue has been argued for years. It is always decided in favor of ever more consolidation into a single forum regardless of application, operating system, and goal. Perhaps that is why so few participate in answering questions. It is just too tedious to weed through so many ambiguous questions to find a place where one might contribute a solution. The situation is worsened by the inability of so many to write an informative subject for a new thread.

The obvious refutation of this ancient argument is that the first response to many posts is:
What Affinity application are you using?
What operating system are you using?
So one must read the first three or four posts on every thread before reaching a point where one can begin to answer the question being asked by the OP. 
This issue has been argued for years. It is always decided in favor of ever more consolidation into a single forum regardless of application, operating system, and goal. Perhaps that is why so few participate in answering questions. It is just too tedious to weed through so many ambiguous questions to find a place where one might contribute a solution. The situation is worsened by the inability of so many to write an informative subject for a new thread.

I don't use Floating document windows very much, either. But I can confirm that on Windows I see the same behavior. An Adjustment panel appears briefly and then quickly hides behind the Floating document window, in both Photo 2.3.1 and 2.4.0.2222 Beta.

This is a request that Shortcuts be made searchable in Preferences.
I had hoped that as part of the "Something Big" launch of APhoto Version 2 we would see a useful Search function in the Preferences dialog box. Especially the Shortcuts should be searchable. It's a feature that has been requested for many years. The inability to search Shortcuts is especially frustrating when trying to create new shortcuts.
The need for this Search was discussed at some length 2-1/2 years ago in the thread athttps://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/110065-publisher-for-windows-18-using-preferencessearch/
and 
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/68413-preferences-window-ui-is-frustratingly-designed/
I reported this lack of searchability as a bug in APhoto Version 2
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171185-search-box-in-preferences-does-nothing/
I now understand this lack of functionality is not considered a bug because the Search works as designed and coded. That's why I am now making this a feature request.
 
 

Sadly @thomB you have discovered the fatal flaw in all Affinity software applications. The user interface is unpleasant to use and even dysfunctional in many ways. Still, some of us continue to put up with it for reasons of our own.
Eight years of begging Serif to make the UI readable have fallen on deaf ears. The upgrade to Affinity 2 actually made the interface worse and doubled down on reducing contrast.
For more background and some suggestions for partial solutions under Windows, see my post  at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/191947-ui-sizing-for-apps/&do=findComment&comment=1125237
It will lead you to other discussions of the usability problem. I'm working on two 24" monitors at 1920x1280 resolution. Windows Accessibility settings let me enlarge text in those UI elements that use the Windows system font. Unfortunately, most text elements and the icons are hard coded into Affinity apps. There is no way to increase their size without scaling all of Windows, a highly undesirable workaround that messes up all other applications.
I have several quirky personal reasons for sticking with Affinity for now, but I would never recommend it to anyone else. And I will never be able to upgrade to a high resolution monitor if I want to continue with Affinity products.
 

Sadly @thomB you have discovered the fatal flaw in all Affinity software applications. The user interface is unpleasant to use and even dysfunctional in many ways. Still, some of us continue to put up with it for reasons of our own.
Eight years of begging Serif to make the UI readable have fallen on deaf ears. The upgrade to Affinity 2 actually made the interface worse and doubled down on reducing contrast.
For more background and some suggestions for partial solutions under Windows, see my post  at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/191947-ui-sizing-for-apps/&do=findComment&comment=1125237
It will lead you to other discussions of the usability problem. I'm working on two 24" monitors at 1920x1280 resolution. Windows Accessibility settings let me enlarge text in those UI elements that use the Windows system font. Unfortunately, most text elements and the icons are hard coded into Affinity apps. There is no way to increase their size without scaling all of Windows, a highly undesirable workaround that messes up all other applications.
I have several quirky personal reasons for sticking with Affinity for now, but I would never recommend it to anyone else. And I will never be able to upgrade to a high resolution monitor if I want to continue with Affinity products.
 

Three years ago there was a request in the Affinity 1 forums for more obvious highlighting for Preflight Text Patterns. 
I'd like to renew @Loquos's  request here in the Affinity 2 forums.
It would be very helpful to have more obvious highlighting in preflight warnings for Text Patterns. Perhaps most people don't use that feature of Preflight given that Text Patterns options are all turned off by default.
I'm surprised how little appears in the forums when you search the phrase "Text Patterns". Surely people are trying to find extra spaces, multiple spaces, and straight quotes when text is pasted from elsewhere. It's especially difficult to find the very thin highlight for straight quotes (especially for apostrophes) in a large text frame.
Or have I missed something obvious?

Let's enlarge on R C-R's comment that he cannot understand why the Affinity usability issue has never been addressed since day 1.
In a phrase popularized by a prominent, contemporary, social commentator, "it is beyond comprehension" that such a serious, even debilitating, deficiency has never been addressed despite assurances given seven years ago that such issues would be addressed in future versions. 
The user interface has indeed been altered over the years, but always in ways that make usability worse, as I and many others pointed out with the release of Affinity 2 in November 2022. Among many other threads in these forums at the time, see for instance
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/173835-what-ergonomic-design-principles-call-for-minimal-contrast-and-reduced-readability-in-user-interfaces/
In 40 years of desktop computing beginning with PC-DOS and continuing through Windows 3.0 with excursions into the Power Mac world and today in Windows 10 with over 100 applications installed, I have never encountered such an unreadable, unpleasant user interface as that foisted on us by Affinity products. It's enough to make me doubt my sanity for still using the software. I remain sane enough to warn others away from Affinity software unless they have some really compelling reason to try it.

You will find a variety of opinions so you'll have to decide for yourself as your experience grows.
After 20 years as an amateur editing photos with a mouse, I read a few years ago that a tablet could replace a mouse completely. Since I sometimes experienced hand stiffness and fatigue with a mouse, I decided to buy a Wacom Intuos tablet as a Christmas present to myself. I put my mouse away in a drawer to force myself to use the tablet for everything. After a week of frustration, I gave up and returned to the mouse, which I can use with either my left or right hand so I can switch hands if I get tired. 
I do use the Wacom for some selection tasks. Right now I am extracting a half dozen people from a busy, complex background of shrubbery, lawn, house, and sky. This requires a lot of manual editing when the selection tools have difficulty discerning edges when contrast is low. It becomes necessary to create a mask and to manually paint on that mask to get precise edges and to eliminate the usual spillover in both directions across the edges. This involves a lot of click-drag maneuvers that can be hard on the finger holding down the mouse button.
I do not like the Wacom stylus. It is far too thin and the small buttons are hard to use. But it is often more relaxing than exerting constant tension on a mouse button.
I find a mouse far more stable to use than a stylus on a tablet. This may in part be due to my aging hands and my deteriorating handwriting skills. 
I think the choice between mouse and tablet will depend on many variables. The issue can be resolved for each person only through trial and error.
Thus, I think it is best not to anticipate every possibility for future needs. Solutions will become apparent as you progress.
For one example of painting on the mask when making difficult selections, see the latest tutorial from InAffinity at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saCIvqBwNMo
 

People frequently complain that Serif never announces future directions for the Affinity Suite. This turns out not to always be the case.
Quoting from the interview mentioned above by @tzvi20 that was published on 9/30/2023 in "Real Sound"
Ashley: We plan to release 2.3 by the end of the year. We cannot tell you about the specific functions that will be implemented at this time, but we are planning to provide a "cloud service" as a function that will be implemented in the future, which will allow us to share tool assets, color palettes, etc. across devices. It will be.

Additionally, there is a function using AI that we plan to implement in the future. In fact, we've been working on this for the past two years with a team dedicated to AI, and we're starting to see some features that we're excited about. I'm sure it will be a great product that will surprise all users.

We believe that we will be able to make some kind of announcement about either feature in the next 3 to 6 months. please expect to have fun and wait.

In addition to Affinity Revolution (I've bought many of their courses), I can recommend the hundreds of video tutorials from InAffinity
https://www.youtube.com/@inaffinityforaffinityphoto3220/featured
Finding what you need is made easier by the author's superb, categorized Video Index at
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/photography/affinity_photo/inaffinity_video_index.htm

It's a post a few above mine but it's getting lost in the chatter. The PDF of the translation is at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/186676-ai-generative-fill-in-affinity/&do=findComment&comment=1144217
 

People frequently complain that Serif never announces future directions for the Affinity Suite. This turns out not to always be the case.
Quoting from the interview mentioned above by @tzvi20 that was published on 9/30/2023 in "Real Sound"
Ashley: We plan to release 2.3 by the end of the year. We cannot tell you about the specific functions that will be implemented at this time, but we are planning to provide a "cloud service" as a function that will be implemented in the future, which will allow us to share tool assets, color palettes, etc. across devices. It will be.

Additionally, there is a function using AI that we plan to implement in the future. In fact, we've been working on this for the past two years with a team dedicated to AI, and we're starting to see some features that we're excited about. I'm sure it will be a great product that will surprise all users.

We believe that we will be able to make some kind of announcement about either feature in the next 3 to 6 months. please expect to have fun and wait.

I am the one who started this topic, so I cannot be suspected of ...connivance with the enemy 😁
I had a long experience with FrameMaker and some with Indesign and Photoshop and had some endless fights with Adobe. Their products also are not flawless and their support is simply a joke. In addition, I have several paid licenses that I cannot any longer use. I had no serious answers from them... simply they don't register anymore and eventually I gave up.
All that to say that Affinity has its (many) problems, first of all APub stability. Recently things are getting better and I no longer regret having used it instead of the Adobe suite (which I still pay).
IMHO, however, the best part of Affinity is this forum. Used to the Adobe support ("Did you remember switching on your computer? Many people forget its... Oh yes, it's on, but you must ask Apple, not us..."), here I can find competent people, very quick answering and trying to find real solutions together, without any politically correct attitude. 
In the end, beside reasonably good products and a fair pricing policy, for me this forum is the best reason to continue using the Affinity suite. Don't underevaluate it, it's a true difference.

Welcome to the forums, @AllanB. As a new member you may not be aware of the history of requests like yours.
If you search "sticky settings" you will find that people have been requesting retention of settings since Affinity products were launched. See, for instance, this comment in a thread from 2015 at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/6435-multi-sticky-settings/&do=findComment&comment=35741
In contrast, APhoto does have a sticky setting for export location. For more than eight years, people have been asking for a change in this behavior. Files are exported to undesired locations any time you edit images that themselves are stored in different locations. 
This is just another example of inconsistencies in Affinity's increasingly dysfunctional user interface. There has never been any acknowledgement that these things are considered to be problems. Thus, there is no reason to hope they will ever be changed. Affinity never comments on plans for fulfilling anyone's wishes about improving the functionality of its products.  With Affinity, what you see today is what you should expect to see in the future. We each learn to put up with these annoyances for a variety of reasons. 

This is a request that Shortcuts be made searchable in Preferences.
I had hoped that as part of the "Something Big" launch of APhoto Version 2 we would see a useful Search function in the Preferences dialog box. Especially the Shortcuts should be searchable. It's a feature that has been requested for many years. The inability to search Shortcuts is especially frustrating when trying to create new shortcuts.
The need for this Search was discussed at some length 2-1/2 years ago in the thread athttps://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/110065-publisher-for-windows-18-using-preferencessearch/
and 
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/68413-preferences-window-ui-is-frustratingly-designed/
I reported this lack of searchability as a bug in APhoto Version 2
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171185-search-box-in-preferences-does-nothing/
I now understand this lack of functionality is not considered a bug because the Search works as designed and coded. That's why I am now making this a feature request.
 
 

For a bit of history concerning this long neglected deficiency see my post from a year ago
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171469-preferences-search-should-include-searching-shortcuts/
From 2020 see
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/110065-publisher-for-windows-18-using-preferencessearch/
and from 2018
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/68413-preferences-window-ui-is-frustratingly-designed/
I was told that the non-functional Search box is not a bug because it works as designed
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171185-search-box-in-preferences-does-nothing/
 

Welcome @Geronimo52/
There is absolutely no evidence to indicate that Serif has any plans to modify the UI to make it less dysfunctional, nor that they even recognize the existence of a problem other than that some users are grumpy just because they don't have the vision of 25-year-olds.
In fact the release of APhoto 2 made the interface worse as a plethora of posts have documented. With Affinity, what you see is what you should expect to get in the future since that has been the case for more than 8 years during which time all requests for improvement have been ignored. 
It is never a good idea to scale the entire Windows interface. Windows Accessibility options let you scale the size of APhoto text elements that use the system font, but most text elements seem to be hard coded into the software.
My post at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/189371-high-dpi-settings-on-windows-increase-tools-font-size/&do=findComment&comment=1107381
will lead you to other discussions if that really matters. It matters to me, of course, because I have to regularly remind myself why I put up with the Serif Minuscule font and the tiny icons.
There are helpful links in my post at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171054-accessibility-customising-the-ui-font-size/&do=findComment&comment=1075020
In that post I link to another post where I gave my personal reasons for upgrading to Affinity 2 products.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/177444-upgrade-i-still-can-not-decide/&do=findComment&comment=1021782
Best of luck in finding a photo editor that meets your needs for power and usability.
 

lphilpot provided a concise, orderly summary of some differences between MSI and MSIX versions of Affinity 2 software.
I do have a few comments stimulated less by my own meager knowledge of the technical considerations and more by the various comments in these forums from end-users. Such comments have been pouring in continuously during the nearly three months since Affinity 2 for Windows was released as a Windows App (MSIX) rather than as a Windows Program (MSI/EXE).
1.) Windows Apps installed via MSIX seem to be inherently insecure in the judgement of businesses, medical facilities, financial institutions, and others who have reported in these forums that MSIX applications are blocked by their organizations for security reasons. Thus, a possibly significant fraction of Affinity users were prevented from ever installing Affinity 2 (MSIX).
2.) If MSI differed from MSIX mostly in packaging for installation, then why did it take Affinity nearly three months to provide the MSI packaging? It seems the issues are far more complex than mere packaging for distribution. This seems confirmed by Moderators asking for more patience as the developers designed and coded an MSI version of Affinity 2 that would be compatible with the existing MSIX installation.
3.) That the application/user must check for updates for traditional Windows MSI programs seems a major advantage of traditional Windows program installations, not a con at all. I for one, and all the businesses that block MSIX Windows Apps, really do not want software updating itself without advising, and obtaining consent from, the user. I've seen this producer-controlled updating change iPadOS apps without my knowledge or consent (just as Kindle books can say one thing on one day and the opposite tomorrow). End-users, or local system administrators in organizations, should be in control of their software, not controlled by their software.
4.) There is no inherent reason that MSI applications cannot be updated with frequent, small patches. It's been occurring for decades. 
5.) I have been pleased to see that the Windows environment is robust enough to handle the multiple versions of Affinity software residing simultaneously on my computer during the past few days. I'm also pleased that the Affinity developers were able to provide solutions to the problems originating with the MSIX installations.
What continues to bother me most about the Big Debacle is that Affinity user support staff were totally unprepared for the negative reaction to the MSIX installers. The problems encountered by end-users, many of whom could not even install the software at all, should have been anticipated. Support staff should have been trained and prepared to give reasonable explanations and provide solutions. Instead, workarounds were rushed out amongst great turmoil. After three months of disruption and anger, Affinity's reputation is sullied. Those committed in one way or another to the future of Affinity software are frustrated. It was all so unnecessary.

Guess what …

... and quite a few more.

Hello @btmgreg, welcome to the forums.
For background as a new user you should know that people have been begging for a more readable UI since the Affinity apps were first released more than 8 years ago. What you see now seems to be baked into the system. Sadly for so many of us, Affinity 2 made the UI even less usable, as described in numerous threads in these forums beginning last November. 
For more on this topic, see my August 2 post at 
There you will find links to additional posts with more details, including my own reasons for continuing to use Affinity Photo and Publisher despite the unpleasant, dysfunctional UI. Everything is a tradeoff. With Affinity you get great power at an affordable price along with these extremely helpful forums populated by patient, expert users.
See also
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171054-accessibility-customising-the-ui-font-size/&do=findComment&comment=1075020
And why I bought the Affinity 2 Universal License at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/177444-upgrade-i-still-can-not-decide/&do=findComment&comment=1021782
 

[Updated Nov 30 2023 - new version for Publisher 2.3 with 120 more pages than the first version]
Learn how to format text and publish books and other long documents with Affinity Publisher 2.3. This free in-depth manual is filled with steps, tips, and recommendations for:
Character and paragraph formatting - added Nov 30 Text styles - added Nov 30 Documents, Pages, Master Pages, Sections, and Baseline Grid Text Frames, Text Flow, and Stories Books and Chapters Cross-References, Table of Contents, and Index Notes - including Footnotes, Sidenotes, and Endnotes Fields - including Page Numbering, Running Headers, and Custom Variables Anchors and Hyperlinks Printing and Exporting Settings This manual does not cover objects and photos so it covers approximately half of the topics.
Updated version:
Publisher Manual Nov 29 2023.pdf
 
Q&A
Is there a full manual I can purchase? No, this is all there is. Is this really free? Yes, I'm making it available free of charge. It's copyrighted to prevent others from publishing it as their own. Is there an iPad version? No, the steps and screenshots are for the macOS and Windows versions. Is there a version for Designer or Photo? No, but the text features are largely the same so you may find it useful. Why does it use a print layout if it's a PDF? It's a demonstration of how to use the features it describes to create a print book. Original version:
Publisher Manual Sep 26 2023.pdf
Publisher Manual Sep 18 2023.pdf

I think the threat of invisible data being inserted into images created and/or modified by generative AI might be of interest to others in this thread. 
When you use generative AI to alter one of your own images, how can you be sure that the resulting image will not be damaging to yourself in one way or another? How do you know if the AI has not inserted invisible data into your generated image, even data deeply buried in the AI's image library through generative inbreeding?
It turns out that careful visual inspection will not be sufficient to protect your interests.
Companies have developed ways of embedding data into an image that is invisible to the eye but detectable by suitable software. 
This particular article is about invisible digital watermarking and deepfakes. I imagine many other kinds of data, both benign and malignant, might be invisibly embedded in any image you create for yourself using generative AI.
https://spectator.org/saving-ourselves-from-ai-deepfakes/

It was only slightly improved. It's awful. I no longer recommend it to others. 

The disheartening aspect of all this is that Affinity 2 has actually made the UI worse by reducing contrast in a UI that is already difficult to read because of tiny typeface, tiny icons, and inconsistent use of highlighting. How does that happen after years of reports from customers having difficulty with Affinity 1 and years of additional development to produce Affinity 2?
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/173835-what-ergonomic-design-principles-call-for-minimal-contrast-and-reduced-readability-in-user-interfaces/#comment-1000160
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/174379-visually-consistent-unselected-active-and-disabled-states/#comment-1001967
There are now so many threads from so many different people describing different aspects of what is basically one problem of usability/readability that it is difficult to keep up with them all.