Derrick Phillips

Thanks everyone that did the trick. 

Mockup.psdMockup.psdI’ve restarted, restored and reset etc. this still happens. I usually don’t come to the forums until I’m all out of ideas. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with file size or RAM? I’m on the M2 iPad Pro but have the 8(?)GB RAM version. 

I guess when I’ve done this in the past (and it worked), I was just using an embedded document vs a smart object?? (Just thinking out loud)
ps - for whatever reason it is displaying properly now. 
 
thanks for your help  
 

It would be very helpful if there was a way to move the context toolbar to the top of the screen or hide it. Many times, especially when refining selections, with Apple Pencil, when my wrist moves it taps the menu causing it to deselect and I lose the work that I’ve done. VERY frustrating. If i could place it at the top of the screen, that wouldn’t happen. 

Problems: 1) In the course of changing FX parameters, I will tend to touch an empty area on the screen (sometimes by accident, sometimes thinking to de-select the current object and move on to a different task, etc.). It instantly messes up my FX parameters. This is annoying.
2) de-selecting yourself out of the FX menu, or selecting a different object, is a pain because you have to select the move tool, then click on your new object, then click back on your desired FX. This is too many steps, and requires selecting a tool that you don't actually want to use (ex. move).
3) when you turn an FX on, the bottom bar does not automatically update to show the FX you just enabled. You have to hit the name of the FX instead. This is unintuitive.
 
Solutions: 1) if you hit an empty area on the screen, the FX menu does not change parameters.
2) to edit a different object's FX, simply click that object to have the bottom bar / FX side studio menu change and reflect that object's settings.
3) if you turn an FX on, change the bottom bar to that FX's setting.
 
Other thoughts: It other tools and studio interfaces in the program, you can tap an empty spot on the screen to de-select the current object. Or you can tap another object to select that one. Then, the bottom toolbar applies to that newly selected object. FX settings, however, don't work that way. I feel like I constantly have to second-guess what I'm doing when working with FX. "Will this accidentally mess up the parameters I just set? Am I working with the right object? Why don't I see the settings for the FX I just turned on?" etc.

Your screenshot shows the Edit menu.
 

Got it. Thanks. Those icons are very similar (in a bad way). 

I love Affinity Photo and Designer on the iPad. It's amazing how well things are designed and thought out. There's just one area that I really struggle with and it's managing brushes. It's just not easy to organize large collections of brushes. I can't reorder brushes based on how I use them. Moving a brush to a category just puts it at the bottom and then I'm stuck scrolling to the bottom to find that category. Or I have to create a new category and very carefully add each brush in the order I want (and if I mess up I have to delete it and start over). Managing brushes just seems very unintuitive at the moment.

and it would also be really useful if (in all apps on desktop as well):
A: the selected brush in the list stayed highlighted as long as it is being used and
B: there was a reset button to go back to the brushes original settings.

It would be great to be able to name new documents as they are being set up. And also to have access to name/rename while working without having to exit out to the file browser. 
 
Thanks