Nikola Kovac

Would love to see this as well. This is currently the only reason I have to switch back to Krita right now.

Please consider adding a feature where one can easily create seamless textures / patterns, like in Krita https://krita.org/en/item/new-wraparound-tool/
 
 

There it goes, my inspiration that is, out of the window, and I lost it trying to change who knows what shortcut key... again.
As a professional in video, animation, 3d and audio I have used many many applications over the years, and find Affinity package a real refreshing leap forward. However, I must admit that the preferences window across all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher) is one of the most useless I have ever encountered. I am not afraid to switch and learn applications and am ready to customize the new ones I learn to my own best practices, and the preferences window is my friend or it should be, but Affinity's is not at all. Please let me try to explain what I find is wrong with and suggest some changes which I did not think a lot about, but seem much simpler to use. Let's start:
1. The preferences window uses a unique visual paradigm, completely different from any other dialogue I have encountered in the rest of the application. It has a header with Back/forward buttons, "home" button (with an odd icon and a drop-down menu) and search bar. No other panel, toolbar, manager, assistant or any other window in Affinity uses this paradigm or at least my humble knowledge of the app does not bring any into the mind. I doubt that this is good. For instance having tabs, like some other windows would do the trick no need for back/forward buttons, no need for home button, no need for drop-down menu, just 7 simple instantly accessable tabs.
2. search bar is a sneaky red herring! It is in fact dangerously useless! I'd like to change a shortcut for brush size in pixel persona? typing any of these terms does not help me to find where to do it. It seems that this search bar is good for searching only a couple of dozen words which does not make any sense at all, either you make every single preference item that can be change searchable or get rid of the search bar because the way it is now is frustratingly useless.
3. I will not go in depth on my thoughts about "General", "Color", "Performance", "User Interface" and "Tools" pages as I do see some benefit of "bite sized" preferences pages even if some items on them seem to belong to another page, and the number of these pages could actually be decreased. (for instance half of the "Tools" preferences could easily belong to "User Interface" tab)
4. Checkboxes, since they have really powerful results would benefit from tooltip help with a more verbose description of what they do.
5. "Miscellaneous" could easily be renamed to "factory resets" or something on that line, as that is what it does.
6. And now I come to my nemesis, the "Keyboard Shortcuts" page. Where to start?!
a) there is a search bar on the upper right, that is as we said a sneaky trap, and a red herring. It does not help us here, and will take us "home" probably finding nothing of interest.
b) we need to use these two fiddly drop-downs. The first one could easily be replaced with beautiful Draw, Pixel and Export icons cutting the number of actions for picking persona to edit to only one click (or even better none.. read on). The second one is really unintuitive as its items partially overlap in different personas. It took me a while to get the idea that this second one is contextual to the first one (as the list changes "behind the curtain")... I got it only after learning my way a bit around the app so I recognised that some items belong to some personas.
c)  a quick overview of other buttons and check boxes in this upper region of Keyboard Shortcuts page;
"Apply to all" -what? to all what? I had to dig through the manual to see what it does, and all it would take to fix it is to call it "apply shortcut changes to all personas" without this information there is no way to know that there actually are some connections possible between personas. As if the for instance, brush size in pixel and draw persona must be separate.
"Ignore Modifier—Lets you create shortcuts using a single letter designation instead of using keyboard modifiers." says the manual, and I still do not get it. Does it allow me to pres only the letter in application without modifier keys and get what I want? No, as Ctrl+S is stil "save" and "Ctrl+Shift+S" is stil Save as. Does it filter out the input of Modifier keys while assigning new shortcuts? No. So what does it do? Maybe a better explanation in manual would help, and a more verbose checkbox title or tooltip.
"Load/Save" what? it loads and saves what? a file obviously, but what does that file contain? All shortcuts, or only those in focus? Maybe "Load Shortcut configuration" or something on that line would be better. to be continued...

Version 1.10 still no signs of improvement in Preferences window.
Coming from the software development industry I presume this is a low priority feature to Serif not because it is not important, but because it is not a "shop window" feature, it does not sell units, it just bugs us suckers that already payed for the thing.
For me personally, because I switch many different apps during one day (or what hurts even more, one month, when you use some apps every xouple o days or weeks), preferences is one of the most important features, that makes strong first impressions. Not being able to quickly tweak the tool to my liking and preference, means huge frustration as I stated in the title. It means that switching to Affinity app in the time of need will hurt my brain trying to adapt to shortcuts that I did not have time or energy changing to my preference because of the useless UI design of shortcuts tab in app preferences. I do not need Affinity apps every day but I do need them, and they are important to me.
I already switched some of my other bread and butter apps with newer ones that had these basic UI paradigms sorted out. We live in a world that is being filled with more and more options, and features and things. Software developers that make their features and tool more easily available and usable are gonna get more buyers because most users, and most tasks only call for the minority of basic features, and to me being able to make these basic features even more easily available by setting my own shortcuts is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. Serif treating this as low priority is making a mistake I think. Ask Blender devs what a rethink of UI can do for the user acquisition.
Better general UX and UI is exactly why I switched from Adobe to Affinty apps in the first place too.. not the number of features.

...continued
"Reset" what? does it reset the shortcuts in focus or all? the manual says all customized, but a first time user, trying to find its way around the app will have to dig, and all it takes is that button to say "Reset all shortcuts to factory defaults" (or something on that line)
"Clear all shortcuts" ok this one is self explanatory.
7. the shortcut list itself...
a) c'mon, it's a list and it is restricted to show only 8 lines at a time it is wider than it is tall, and the window cannot be resized to see all items on the list :-D that's silly. I need to constantly scroll up and down this miniature list although I could dedicate a whole monitor for it, as I am unable to search for an item on it because the frickin' search bar is bonkers.
b) If I pick a new key that overlaps with existing combo, I get great little yellow icon telling me so, mouseover will give me the info, great. And now I need to go back to those two fiddly drop-downs fo find my way to the duplicate if I want to change it, why not give me an opportunity to solve this conflict here and now, by doublee clicking on the yellow icon or something.
Here is my suggestion for solving the Keyboard Shortcut preferences mess. Why not making a table with horizontally foldable categories of shortcuts (foldable like "Assets" sub categories) these categories would be "File", "Edit", "Text" etc.. First column would stay the same, that is, the description, Second column would show Draw persona shortcuts, third Pixel persona, fourth Export persona. It would make the features that are parallel across personas obvious, those that are non-existent in a certain persona would be "grayed out"  And make the preferences window resizable, please. That way we could edit our shortcuts many times more quickly, and enjoy the switch to Affinity apps much more.
Please, pardon my ignorance, as I am not a professional UI designer but a frustrated user. I have written this overly long post to try and make Affinity better. I have lost precious time and artistic inspiration because of the design of this window and decided to spend some more time, trying my best to alleviate the problem somehow.
Please try and read it with an open heart, as it was written in the best of intention.
 

There it goes, my inspiration that is, out of the window, and I lost it trying to change who knows what shortcut key... again.
As a professional in video, animation, 3d and audio I have used many many applications over the years, and find Affinity package a real refreshing leap forward. However, I must admit that the preferences window across all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher) is one of the most useless I have ever encountered. I am not afraid to switch and learn applications and am ready to customize the new ones I learn to my own best practices, and the preferences window is my friend or it should be, but Affinity's is not at all. Please let me try to explain what I find is wrong with and suggest some changes which I did not think a lot about, but seem much simpler to use. Let's start:
1. The preferences window uses a unique visual paradigm, completely different from any other dialogue I have encountered in the rest of the application. It has a header with Back/forward buttons, "home" button (with an odd icon and a drop-down menu) and search bar. No other panel, toolbar, manager, assistant or any other window in Affinity uses this paradigm or at least my humble knowledge of the app does not bring any into the mind. I doubt that this is good. For instance having tabs, like some other windows would do the trick no need for back/forward buttons, no need for home button, no need for drop-down menu, just 7 simple instantly accessable tabs.
2. search bar is a sneaky red herring! It is in fact dangerously useless! I'd like to change a shortcut for brush size in pixel persona? typing any of these terms does not help me to find where to do it. It seems that this search bar is good for searching only a couple of dozen words which does not make any sense at all, either you make every single preference item that can be change searchable or get rid of the search bar because the way it is now is frustratingly useless.
3. I will not go in depth on my thoughts about "General", "Color", "Performance", "User Interface" and "Tools" pages as I do see some benefit of "bite sized" preferences pages even if some items on them seem to belong to another page, and the number of these pages could actually be decreased. (for instance half of the "Tools" preferences could easily belong to "User Interface" tab)
4. Checkboxes, since they have really powerful results would benefit from tooltip help with a more verbose description of what they do.
5. "Miscellaneous" could easily be renamed to "factory resets" or something on that line, as that is what it does.
6. And now I come to my nemesis, the "Keyboard Shortcuts" page. Where to start?!
a) there is a search bar on the upper right, that is as we said a sneaky trap, and a red herring. It does not help us here, and will take us "home" probably finding nothing of interest.
b) we need to use these two fiddly drop-downs. The first one could easily be replaced with beautiful Draw, Pixel and Export icons cutting the number of actions for picking persona to edit to only one click (or even better none.. read on). The second one is really unintuitive as its items partially overlap in different personas. It took me a while to get the idea that this second one is contextual to the first one (as the list changes "behind the curtain")... I got it only after learning my way a bit around the app so I recognised that some items belong to some personas.
c)  a quick overview of other buttons and check boxes in this upper region of Keyboard Shortcuts page;
"Apply to all" -what? to all what? I had to dig through the manual to see what it does, and all it would take to fix it is to call it "apply shortcut changes to all personas" without this information there is no way to know that there actually are some connections possible between personas. As if the for instance, brush size in pixel and draw persona must be separate.
"Ignore Modifier—Lets you create shortcuts using a single letter designation instead of using keyboard modifiers." says the manual, and I still do not get it. Does it allow me to pres only the letter in application without modifier keys and get what I want? No, as Ctrl+S is stil "save" and "Ctrl+Shift+S" is stil Save as. Does it filter out the input of Modifier keys while assigning new shortcuts? No. So what does it do? Maybe a better explanation in manual would help, and a more verbose checkbox title or tooltip.
"Load/Save" what? it loads and saves what? a file obviously, but what does that file contain? All shortcuts, or only those in focus? Maybe "Load Shortcut configuration" or something on that line would be better. to be continued...

Version 1.10 still no signs of improvement in Preferences window.
Coming from the software development industry I presume this is a low priority feature to Serif not because it is not important, but because it is not a "shop window" feature, it does not sell units, it just bugs us suckers that already payed for the thing.
For me personally, because I switch many different apps during one day (or what hurts even more, one month, when you use some apps every xouple o days or weeks), preferences is one of the most important features, that makes strong first impressions. Not being able to quickly tweak the tool to my liking and preference, means huge frustration as I stated in the title. It means that switching to Affinity app in the time of need will hurt my brain trying to adapt to shortcuts that I did not have time or energy changing to my preference because of the useless UI design of shortcuts tab in app preferences. I do not need Affinity apps every day but I do need them, and they are important to me.
I already switched some of my other bread and butter apps with newer ones that had these basic UI paradigms sorted out. We live in a world that is being filled with more and more options, and features and things. Software developers that make their features and tool more easily available and usable are gonna get more buyers because most users, and most tasks only call for the minority of basic features, and to me being able to make these basic features even more easily available by setting my own shortcuts is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. Serif treating this as low priority is making a mistake I think. Ask Blender devs what a rethink of UI can do for the user acquisition.
Better general UX and UI is exactly why I switched from Adobe to Affinty apps in the first place too.. not the number of features.

Version 1.10 still no signs of improvement in Preferences window.
Coming from the software development industry I presume this is a low priority feature to Serif not because it is not important, but because it is not a "shop window" feature, it does not sell units, it just bugs us suckers that already payed for the thing.
For me personally, because I switch many different apps during one day (or what hurts even more, one month, when you use some apps every xouple o days or weeks), preferences is one of the most important features, that makes strong first impressions. Not being able to quickly tweak the tool to my liking and preference, means huge frustration as I stated in the title. It means that switching to Affinity app in the time of need will hurt my brain trying to adapt to shortcuts that I did not have time or energy changing to my preference because of the useless UI design of shortcuts tab in app preferences. I do not need Affinity apps every day but I do need them, and they are important to me.
I already switched some of my other bread and butter apps with newer ones that had these basic UI paradigms sorted out. We live in a world that is being filled with more and more options, and features and things. Software developers that make their features and tool more easily available and usable are gonna get more buyers because most users, and most tasks only call for the minority of basic features, and to me being able to make these basic features even more easily available by setting my own shortcuts is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. Serif treating this as low priority is making a mistake I think. Ask Blender devs what a rethink of UI can do for the user acquisition.
Better general UX and UI is exactly why I switched from Adobe to Affinty apps in the first place too.. not the number of features.

Version 1.10 still no signs of improvement in Preferences window.
Coming from the software development industry I presume this is a low priority feature to Serif not because it is not important, but because it is not a "shop window" feature, it does not sell units, it just bugs us suckers that already payed for the thing.
For me personally, because I switch many different apps during one day (or what hurts even more, one month, when you use some apps every xouple o days or weeks), preferences is one of the most important features, that makes strong first impressions. Not being able to quickly tweak the tool to my liking and preference, means huge frustration as I stated in the title. It means that switching to Affinity app in the time of need will hurt my brain trying to adapt to shortcuts that I did not have time or energy changing to my preference because of the useless UI design of shortcuts tab in app preferences. I do not need Affinity apps every day but I do need them, and they are important to me.
I already switched some of my other bread and butter apps with newer ones that had these basic UI paradigms sorted out. We live in a world that is being filled with more and more options, and features and things. Software developers that make their features and tool more easily available and usable are gonna get more buyers because most users, and most tasks only call for the minority of basic features, and to me being able to make these basic features even more easily available by setting my own shortcuts is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. Serif treating this as low priority is making a mistake I think. Ask Blender devs what a rethink of UI can do for the user acquisition.
Better general UX and UI is exactly why I switched from Adobe to Affinty apps in the first place too.. not the number of features.

Version 1.10 still no signs of improvement in Preferences window.
Coming from the software development industry I presume this is a low priority feature to Serif not because it is not important, but because it is not a "shop window" feature, it does not sell units, it just bugs us suckers that already payed for the thing.
For me personally, because I switch many different apps during one day (or what hurts even more, one month, when you use some apps every xouple o days or weeks), preferences is one of the most important features, that makes strong first impressions. Not being able to quickly tweak the tool to my liking and preference, means huge frustration as I stated in the title. It means that switching to Affinity app in the time of need will hurt my brain trying to adapt to shortcuts that I did not have time or energy changing to my preference because of the useless UI design of shortcuts tab in app preferences. I do not need Affinity apps every day but I do need them, and they are important to me.
I already switched some of my other bread and butter apps with newer ones that had these basic UI paradigms sorted out. We live in a world that is being filled with more and more options, and features and things. Software developers that make their features and tool more easily available and usable are gonna get more buyers because most users, and most tasks only call for the minority of basic features, and to me being able to make these basic features even more easily available by setting my own shortcuts is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. Serif treating this as low priority is making a mistake I think. Ask Blender devs what a rethink of UI can do for the user acquisition.
Better general UX and UI is exactly why I switched from Adobe to Affinty apps in the first place too.. not the number of features.

Someone from Serif probably can, but as I've just done some experimentation I'll mention what I've found.
In Photo 1.9.1.952 beta I decided to set a shortcut for Edit in Designer.
First experiment: With Ignore Modifier off (default) when I set the shortcut by typing "a" and it displayed as A (matching what shows on the keycap on the keyboard). To use this shortcut I press the A key without having shift pressed. If I wanted I could have some other shortcut defined as Shift+A.
I then deleted that shortcut.
  Second experiment: I set Ignore Modifier. I again set a shortcut for Edit in Designer by typing "a", and the shortcut that was set was displayed as a (not A). At that point I can type a (just as in experiment 1) and it will perform "Edit in Designer". I left that shortcut defined.
  Third Experiment: I set Ignore Modifier. I then set a shortcut for Edit in Publisher by typing Shift+A. This shortcut is displayed as A. I now have one displayed as "a" for Edit in Photo and one displayed as "A" for Edit in Publisher. And at this point if I press "a" it performs Edit in Photo but if I press Shift+A it performs Edit in Publisher. Conclusion: The modifier being ignored is the shift key, and the function allows you to use the lower-case letters as keyboard shortcuts, distinct from the upper-case versions.
Actually, that's wrong. It allows you to use lower-case keys as distinct from upper-case or shifted keys. It may be a bit more obvious if we consider non-alphabetic keys. For example, with Ignore Modifier off, you could assign "," and "Shift+," as shortcuts. With Ignore Modifier on, you could assign "," and "<" (standard US keyboard).
This has a potential advantage in being able to say (or remember) "push , to do function x" and "push < to do function y". It might be easier to remember or understand.
And it might have an advantage if you have keyboards with different key layouts, but that's not something I can test.
 
 

It certainly shouldn't be a democracy, but there are quite a few UI failings based on objective parameters.  If you are providing functionality in software you have to decide how to expose that functionality to the user. You have to know how they employ functionality and provide access to meet their needs. In the case of the preferences window it seems inarguable that going back and forth between screens is less efficient than other methods, such as a tabbed interface or a dual-pane approach (with a list of categories to flip through on the left, the parameters on the right). Another consideration is whether some of these preferences might be things users would change frequently, in which case they should be part of the main interface instead of a "preference".  The developers may not always have the experience in production to know what users are doing with the software, so the feedback is necessary. I recall the early days of graphic software where setting the measurement units might be a "preference", until developers realised that people were changing units constantly from job-to-job or whilst working on a single job; thus interfaces were added to allow quick switching of measurements, mixed-measurement systems and field-based entry of values in any desired unit. Not only that, but we've now had many decades of UI design history, and there are examples of efficient solutions readily available - and if the developers aren't aware of those then the users may well be. If you make a tool you'll never know exactly how it might be used. When you get feedback you can improve that tool to better serve those purposes not envisaged. You get happier customers, you get more customers. As far as functionality goes, I'm very happy with what Affinity provides as it stands - I'd rather see development work on making the UI more consistent and efficient than adding fancy tricks.  

I'd argue that because there are so many keyboard shortcuts is precisely why the search box should search them!
It is very frustrating scrolling through a huge list especially when you aren't sure where to look, or if the shortcut even exists.
For example: Toggle Lock Children.
I searched through ~300 shortcuts just to find there is not keyboard option available.

OK, we've intentionally not included the list of keyboard shortcuts in the search (as there's so many it could make it difficult to find the preferences page you wanted), we could potentially look at adding this to the search results as well.

Three right here, don't know if there are more since Search doesn't work. 

There it goes, my inspiration that is, out of the window, and I lost it trying to change who knows what shortcut key... again.
As a professional in video, animation, 3d and audio I have used many many applications over the years, and find Affinity package a real refreshing leap forward. However, I must admit that the preferences window across all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher) is one of the most useless I have ever encountered. I am not afraid to switch and learn applications and am ready to customize the new ones I learn to my own best practices, and the preferences window is my friend or it should be, but Affinity's is not at all. Please let me try to explain what I find is wrong with and suggest some changes which I did not think a lot about, but seem much simpler to use. Let's start:
1. The preferences window uses a unique visual paradigm, completely different from any other dialogue I have encountered in the rest of the application. It has a header with Back/forward buttons, "home" button (with an odd icon and a drop-down menu) and search bar. No other panel, toolbar, manager, assistant or any other window in Affinity uses this paradigm or at least my humble knowledge of the app does not bring any into the mind. I doubt that this is good. For instance having tabs, like some other windows would do the trick no need for back/forward buttons, no need for home button, no need for drop-down menu, just 7 simple instantly accessable tabs.
2. search bar is a sneaky red herring! It is in fact dangerously useless! I'd like to change a shortcut for brush size in pixel persona? typing any of these terms does not help me to find where to do it. It seems that this search bar is good for searching only a couple of dozen words which does not make any sense at all, either you make every single preference item that can be change searchable or get rid of the search bar because the way it is now is frustratingly useless.
3. I will not go in depth on my thoughts about "General", "Color", "Performance", "User Interface" and "Tools" pages as I do see some benefit of "bite sized" preferences pages even if some items on them seem to belong to another page, and the number of these pages could actually be decreased. (for instance half of the "Tools" preferences could easily belong to "User Interface" tab)
4. Checkboxes, since they have really powerful results would benefit from tooltip help with a more verbose description of what they do.
5. "Miscellaneous" could easily be renamed to "factory resets" or something on that line, as that is what it does.
6. And now I come to my nemesis, the "Keyboard Shortcuts" page. Where to start?!
a) there is a search bar on the upper right, that is as we said a sneaky trap, and a red herring. It does not help us here, and will take us "home" probably finding nothing of interest.
b) we need to use these two fiddly drop-downs. The first one could easily be replaced with beautiful Draw, Pixel and Export icons cutting the number of actions for picking persona to edit to only one click (or even better none.. read on). The second one is really unintuitive as its items partially overlap in different personas. It took me a while to get the idea that this second one is contextual to the first one (as the list changes "behind the curtain")... I got it only after learning my way a bit around the app so I recognised that some items belong to some personas.
c)  a quick overview of other buttons and check boxes in this upper region of Keyboard Shortcuts page;
"Apply to all" -what? to all what? I had to dig through the manual to see what it does, and all it would take to fix it is to call it "apply shortcut changes to all personas" without this information there is no way to know that there actually are some connections possible between personas. As if the for instance, brush size in pixel and draw persona must be separate.
"Ignore Modifier—Lets you create shortcuts using a single letter designation instead of using keyboard modifiers." says the manual, and I still do not get it. Does it allow me to pres only the letter in application without modifier keys and get what I want? No, as Ctrl+S is stil "save" and "Ctrl+Shift+S" is stil Save as. Does it filter out the input of Modifier keys while assigning new shortcuts? No. So what does it do? Maybe a better explanation in manual would help, and a more verbose checkbox title or tooltip.
"Load/Save" what? it loads and saves what? a file obviously, but what does that file contain? All shortcuts, or only those in focus? Maybe "Load Shortcut configuration" or something on that line would be better. to be continued...

There it goes, my inspiration that is, out of the window, and I lost it trying to change who knows what shortcut key... again.
As a professional in video, animation, 3d and audio I have used many many applications over the years, and find Affinity package a real refreshing leap forward. However, I must admit that the preferences window across all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher) is one of the most useless I have ever encountered. I am not afraid to switch and learn applications and am ready to customize the new ones I learn to my own best practices, and the preferences window is my friend or it should be, but Affinity's is not at all. Please let me try to explain what I find is wrong with and suggest some changes which I did not think a lot about, but seem much simpler to use. Let's start:
1. The preferences window uses a unique visual paradigm, completely different from any other dialogue I have encountered in the rest of the application. It has a header with Back/forward buttons, "home" button (with an odd icon and a drop-down menu) and search bar. No other panel, toolbar, manager, assistant or any other window in Affinity uses this paradigm or at least my humble knowledge of the app does not bring any into the mind. I doubt that this is good. For instance having tabs, like some other windows would do the trick no need for back/forward buttons, no need for home button, no need for drop-down menu, just 7 simple instantly accessable tabs.
2. search bar is a sneaky red herring! It is in fact dangerously useless! I'd like to change a shortcut for brush size in pixel persona? typing any of these terms does not help me to find where to do it. It seems that this search bar is good for searching only a couple of dozen words which does not make any sense at all, either you make every single preference item that can be change searchable or get rid of the search bar because the way it is now is frustratingly useless.
3. I will not go in depth on my thoughts about "General", "Color", "Performance", "User Interface" and "Tools" pages as I do see some benefit of "bite sized" preferences pages even if some items on them seem to belong to another page, and the number of these pages could actually be decreased. (for instance half of the "Tools" preferences could easily belong to "User Interface" tab)
4. Checkboxes, since they have really powerful results would benefit from tooltip help with a more verbose description of what they do.
5. "Miscellaneous" could easily be renamed to "factory resets" or something on that line, as that is what it does.
6. And now I come to my nemesis, the "Keyboard Shortcuts" page. Where to start?!
a) there is a search bar on the upper right, that is as we said a sneaky trap, and a red herring. It does not help us here, and will take us "home" probably finding nothing of interest.
b) we need to use these two fiddly drop-downs. The first one could easily be replaced with beautiful Draw, Pixel and Export icons cutting the number of actions for picking persona to edit to only one click (or even better none.. read on). The second one is really unintuitive as its items partially overlap in different personas. It took me a while to get the idea that this second one is contextual to the first one (as the list changes "behind the curtain")... I got it only after learning my way a bit around the app so I recognised that some items belong to some personas.
c)  a quick overview of other buttons and check boxes in this upper region of Keyboard Shortcuts page;
"Apply to all" -what? to all what? I had to dig through the manual to see what it does, and all it would take to fix it is to call it "apply shortcut changes to all personas" without this information there is no way to know that there actually are some connections possible between personas. As if the for instance, brush size in pixel and draw persona must be separate.
"Ignore Modifier—Lets you create shortcuts using a single letter designation instead of using keyboard modifiers." says the manual, and I still do not get it. Does it allow me to pres only the letter in application without modifier keys and get what I want? No, as Ctrl+S is stil "save" and "Ctrl+Shift+S" is stil Save as. Does it filter out the input of Modifier keys while assigning new shortcuts? No. So what does it do? Maybe a better explanation in manual would help, and a more verbose checkbox title or tooltip.
"Load/Save" what? it loads and saves what? a file obviously, but what does that file contain? All shortcuts, or only those in focus? Maybe "Load Shortcut configuration" or something on that line would be better. to be continued...

...continued
"Reset" what? does it reset the shortcuts in focus or all? the manual says all customized, but a first time user, trying to find its way around the app will have to dig, and all it takes is that button to say "Reset all shortcuts to factory defaults" (or something on that line)
"Clear all shortcuts" ok this one is self explanatory.
7. the shortcut list itself...
a) c'mon, it's a list and it is restricted to show only 8 lines at a time it is wider than it is tall, and the window cannot be resized to see all items on the list :-D that's silly. I need to constantly scroll up and down this miniature list although I could dedicate a whole monitor for it, as I am unable to search for an item on it because the frickin' search bar is bonkers.
b) If I pick a new key that overlaps with existing combo, I get great little yellow icon telling me so, mouseover will give me the info, great. And now I need to go back to those two fiddly drop-downs fo find my way to the duplicate if I want to change it, why not give me an opportunity to solve this conflict here and now, by doublee clicking on the yellow icon or something.
Here is my suggestion for solving the Keyboard Shortcut preferences mess. Why not making a table with horizontally foldable categories of shortcuts (foldable like "Assets" sub categories) these categories would be "File", "Edit", "Text" etc.. First column would stay the same, that is, the description, Second column would show Draw persona shortcuts, third Pixel persona, fourth Export persona. It would make the features that are parallel across personas obvious, those that are non-existent in a certain persona would be "grayed out"  And make the preferences window resizable, please. That way we could edit our shortcuts many times more quickly, and enjoy the switch to Affinity apps much more.
Please, pardon my ignorance, as I am not a professional UI designer but a frustrated user. I have written this overly long post to try and make Affinity better. I have lost precious time and artistic inspiration because of the design of this window and decided to spend some more time, trying my best to alleviate the problem somehow.
Please try and read it with an open heart, as it was written in the best of intention.
 

...continued
"Reset" what? does it reset the shortcuts in focus or all? the manual says all customized, but a first time user, trying to find its way around the app will have to dig, and all it takes is that button to say "Reset all shortcuts to factory defaults" (or something on that line)
"Clear all shortcuts" ok this one is self explanatory.
7. the shortcut list itself...
a) c'mon, it's a list and it is restricted to show only 8 lines at a time it is wider than it is tall, and the window cannot be resized to see all items on the list :-D that's silly. I need to constantly scroll up and down this miniature list although I could dedicate a whole monitor for it, as I am unable to search for an item on it because the frickin' search bar is bonkers.
b) If I pick a new key that overlaps with existing combo, I get great little yellow icon telling me so, mouseover will give me the info, great. And now I need to go back to those two fiddly drop-downs fo find my way to the duplicate if I want to change it, why not give me an opportunity to solve this conflict here and now, by doublee clicking on the yellow icon or something.
Here is my suggestion for solving the Keyboard Shortcut preferences mess. Why not making a table with horizontally foldable categories of shortcuts (foldable like "Assets" sub categories) these categories would be "File", "Edit", "Text" etc.. First column would stay the same, that is, the description, Second column would show Draw persona shortcuts, third Pixel persona, fourth Export persona. It would make the features that are parallel across personas obvious, those that are non-existent in a certain persona would be "grayed out"  And make the preferences window resizable, please. That way we could edit our shortcuts many times more quickly, and enjoy the switch to Affinity apps much more.
Please, pardon my ignorance, as I am not a professional UI designer but a frustrated user. I have written this overly long post to try and make Affinity better. I have lost precious time and artistic inspiration because of the design of this window and decided to spend some more time, trying my best to alleviate the problem somehow.
Please try and read it with an open heart, as it was written in the best of intention.
 

Version 1.7 still has just as hideous Preferences window as before. Such a shame, all those nice new features' shortcuts hidden under a black magic wall that the "Keyboard Shortcuts" window is. Using it hurts like my fingers are broken. For a graphical design app this is embarrassing. Take a look at Reaper digital audio workstation app for instance how "search" should work. The program might be ugly but it works and is 100 times more intuitive and quicker to set up.
Excuse my strong language, but for someone working in several 3D, game engine, audio, graphical and painting apps daily switching them back and forth (think 5-6 daily) setting up shortcuts easily is absolutely important. Being able to set up most of shortcuts the same in all graphics apps quickly for me is the first base and Affinity leaves bitter taste at the very start.
People do not think of features of an app in terms of categories but as tools or features. Affinity pleases don't make us search for them via two mutually dependant dropdowns like it is 1990. It is 2019 for god's sake, filter the list while I'm typing into search bar at least. or as in Blender 3d allow me to set a new shortcut immediately in the program with right-click on the button on the main UI.
Please, please, please!

There it goes, my inspiration that is, out of the window, and I lost it trying to change who knows what shortcut key... again.
As a professional in video, animation, 3d and audio I have used many many applications over the years, and find Affinity package a real refreshing leap forward. However, I must admit that the preferences window across all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher) is one of the most useless I have ever encountered. I am not afraid to switch and learn applications and am ready to customize the new ones I learn to my own best practices, and the preferences window is my friend or it should be, but Affinity's is not at all. Please let me try to explain what I find is wrong with and suggest some changes which I did not think a lot about, but seem much simpler to use. Let's start:
1. The preferences window uses a unique visual paradigm, completely different from any other dialogue I have encountered in the rest of the application. It has a header with Back/forward buttons, "home" button (with an odd icon and a drop-down menu) and search bar. No other panel, toolbar, manager, assistant or any other window in Affinity uses this paradigm or at least my humble knowledge of the app does not bring any into the mind. I doubt that this is good. For instance having tabs, like some other windows would do the trick no need for back/forward buttons, no need for home button, no need for drop-down menu, just 7 simple instantly accessable tabs.
2. search bar is a sneaky red herring! It is in fact dangerously useless! I'd like to change a shortcut for brush size in pixel persona? typing any of these terms does not help me to find where to do it. It seems that this search bar is good for searching only a couple of dozen words which does not make any sense at all, either you make every single preference item that can be change searchable or get rid of the search bar because the way it is now is frustratingly useless.
3. I will not go in depth on my thoughts about "General", "Color", "Performance", "User Interface" and "Tools" pages as I do see some benefit of "bite sized" preferences pages even if some items on them seem to belong to another page, and the number of these pages could actually be decreased. (for instance half of the "Tools" preferences could easily belong to "User Interface" tab)
4. Checkboxes, since they have really powerful results would benefit from tooltip help with a more verbose description of what they do.
5. "Miscellaneous" could easily be renamed to "factory resets" or something on that line, as that is what it does.
6. And now I come to my nemesis, the "Keyboard Shortcuts" page. Where to start?!
a) there is a search bar on the upper right, that is as we said a sneaky trap, and a red herring. It does not help us here, and will take us "home" probably finding nothing of interest.
b) we need to use these two fiddly drop-downs. The first one could easily be replaced with beautiful Draw, Pixel and Export icons cutting the number of actions for picking persona to edit to only one click (or even better none.. read on). The second one is really unintuitive as its items partially overlap in different personas. It took me a while to get the idea that this second one is contextual to the first one (as the list changes "behind the curtain")... I got it only after learning my way a bit around the app so I recognised that some items belong to some personas.
c)  a quick overview of other buttons and check boxes in this upper region of Keyboard Shortcuts page;
"Apply to all" -what? to all what? I had to dig through the manual to see what it does, and all it would take to fix it is to call it "apply shortcut changes to all personas" without this information there is no way to know that there actually are some connections possible between personas. As if the for instance, brush size in pixel and draw persona must be separate.
"Ignore Modifier—Lets you create shortcuts using a single letter designation instead of using keyboard modifiers." says the manual, and I still do not get it. Does it allow me to pres only the letter in application without modifier keys and get what I want? No, as Ctrl+S is stil "save" and "Ctrl+Shift+S" is stil Save as. Does it filter out the input of Modifier keys while assigning new shortcuts? No. So what does it do? Maybe a better explanation in manual would help, and a more verbose checkbox title or tooltip.
"Load/Save" what? it loads and saves what? a file obviously, but what does that file contain? All shortcuts, or only those in focus? Maybe "Load Shortcut configuration" or something on that line would be better. to be continued...

...continued
"Reset" what? does it reset the shortcuts in focus or all? the manual says all customized, but a first time user, trying to find its way around the app will have to dig, and all it takes is that button to say "Reset all shortcuts to factory defaults" (or something on that line)
"Clear all shortcuts" ok this one is self explanatory.
7. the shortcut list itself...
a) c'mon, it's a list and it is restricted to show only 8 lines at a time it is wider than it is tall, and the window cannot be resized to see all items on the list :-D that's silly. I need to constantly scroll up and down this miniature list although I could dedicate a whole monitor for it, as I am unable to search for an item on it because the frickin' search bar is bonkers.
b) If I pick a new key that overlaps with existing combo, I get great little yellow icon telling me so, mouseover will give me the info, great. And now I need to go back to those two fiddly drop-downs fo find my way to the duplicate if I want to change it, why not give me an opportunity to solve this conflict here and now, by doublee clicking on the yellow icon or something.
Here is my suggestion for solving the Keyboard Shortcut preferences mess. Why not making a table with horizontally foldable categories of shortcuts (foldable like "Assets" sub categories) these categories would be "File", "Edit", "Text" etc.. First column would stay the same, that is, the description, Second column would show Draw persona shortcuts, third Pixel persona, fourth Export persona. It would make the features that are parallel across personas obvious, those that are non-existent in a certain persona would be "grayed out"  And make the preferences window resizable, please. That way we could edit our shortcuts many times more quickly, and enjoy the switch to Affinity apps much more.
Please, pardon my ignorance, as I am not a professional UI designer but a frustrated user. I have written this overly long post to try and make Affinity better. I have lost precious time and artistic inspiration because of the design of this window and decided to spend some more time, trying my best to alleviate the problem somehow.
Please try and read it with an open heart, as it was written in the best of intention.
 

Version 1.7 still has just as hideous Preferences window as before. Such a shame, all those nice new features' shortcuts hidden under a black magic wall that the "Keyboard Shortcuts" window is. Using it hurts like my fingers are broken. For a graphical design app this is embarrassing. Take a look at Reaper digital audio workstation app for instance how "search" should work. The program might be ugly but it works and is 100 times more intuitive and quicker to set up.
Excuse my strong language, but for someone working in several 3D, game engine, audio, graphical and painting apps daily switching them back and forth (think 5-6 daily) setting up shortcuts easily is absolutely important. Being able to set up most of shortcuts the same in all graphics apps quickly for me is the first base and Affinity leaves bitter taste at the very start.
People do not think of features of an app in terms of categories but as tools or features. Affinity pleases don't make us search for them via two mutually dependant dropdowns like it is 1990. It is 2019 for god's sake, filter the list while I'm typing into search bar at least. or as in Blender 3d allow me to set a new shortcut immediately in the program with right-click on the button on the main UI.
Please, please, please!

...continued
"Reset" what? does it reset the shortcuts in focus or all? the manual says all customized, but a first time user, trying to find its way around the app will have to dig, and all it takes is that button to say "Reset all shortcuts to factory defaults" (or something on that line)
"Clear all shortcuts" ok this one is self explanatory.
7. the shortcut list itself...
a) c'mon, it's a list and it is restricted to show only 8 lines at a time it is wider than it is tall, and the window cannot be resized to see all items on the list :-D that's silly. I need to constantly scroll up and down this miniature list although I could dedicate a whole monitor for it, as I am unable to search for an item on it because the frickin' search bar is bonkers.
b) If I pick a new key that overlaps with existing combo, I get great little yellow icon telling me so, mouseover will give me the info, great. And now I need to go back to those two fiddly drop-downs fo find my way to the duplicate if I want to change it, why not give me an opportunity to solve this conflict here and now, by doublee clicking on the yellow icon or something.
Here is my suggestion for solving the Keyboard Shortcut preferences mess. Why not making a table with horizontally foldable categories of shortcuts (foldable like "Assets" sub categories) these categories would be "File", "Edit", "Text" etc.. First column would stay the same, that is, the description, Second column would show Draw persona shortcuts, third Pixel persona, fourth Export persona. It would make the features that are parallel across personas obvious, those that are non-existent in a certain persona would be "grayed out"  And make the preferences window resizable, please. That way we could edit our shortcuts many times more quickly, and enjoy the switch to Affinity apps much more.
Please, pardon my ignorance, as I am not a professional UI designer but a frustrated user. I have written this overly long post to try and make Affinity better. I have lost precious time and artistic inspiration because of the design of this window and decided to spend some more time, trying my best to alleviate the problem somehow.
Please try and read it with an open heart, as it was written in the best of intention.
 

There it goes, my inspiration that is, out of the window, and I lost it trying to change who knows what shortcut key... again.
As a professional in video, animation, 3d and audio I have used many many applications over the years, and find Affinity package a real refreshing leap forward. However, I must admit that the preferences window across all three Affinity apps (Photo, Designer and Publisher) is one of the most useless I have ever encountered. I am not afraid to switch and learn applications and am ready to customize the new ones I learn to my own best practices, and the preferences window is my friend or it should be, but Affinity's is not at all. Please let me try to explain what I find is wrong with and suggest some changes which I did not think a lot about, but seem much simpler to use. Let's start:
1. The preferences window uses a unique visual paradigm, completely different from any other dialogue I have encountered in the rest of the application. It has a header with Back/forward buttons, "home" button (with an odd icon and a drop-down menu) and search bar. No other panel, toolbar, manager, assistant or any other window in Affinity uses this paradigm or at least my humble knowledge of the app does not bring any into the mind. I doubt that this is good. For instance having tabs, like some other windows would do the trick no need for back/forward buttons, no need for home button, no need for drop-down menu, just 7 simple instantly accessable tabs.
2. search bar is a sneaky red herring! It is in fact dangerously useless! I'd like to change a shortcut for brush size in pixel persona? typing any of these terms does not help me to find where to do it. It seems that this search bar is good for searching only a couple of dozen words which does not make any sense at all, either you make every single preference item that can be change searchable or get rid of the search bar because the way it is now is frustratingly useless.
3. I will not go in depth on my thoughts about "General", "Color", "Performance", "User Interface" and "Tools" pages as I do see some benefit of "bite sized" preferences pages even if some items on them seem to belong to another page, and the number of these pages could actually be decreased. (for instance half of the "Tools" preferences could easily belong to "User Interface" tab)
4. Checkboxes, since they have really powerful results would benefit from tooltip help with a more verbose description of what they do.
5. "Miscellaneous" could easily be renamed to "factory resets" or something on that line, as that is what it does.
6. And now I come to my nemesis, the "Keyboard Shortcuts" page. Where to start?!
a) there is a search bar on the upper right, that is as we said a sneaky trap, and a red herring. It does not help us here, and will take us "home" probably finding nothing of interest.
b) we need to use these two fiddly drop-downs. The first one could easily be replaced with beautiful Draw, Pixel and Export icons cutting the number of actions for picking persona to edit to only one click (or even better none.. read on). The second one is really unintuitive as its items partially overlap in different personas. It took me a while to get the idea that this second one is contextual to the first one (as the list changes "behind the curtain")... I got it only after learning my way a bit around the app so I recognised that some items belong to some personas.
c)  a quick overview of other buttons and check boxes in this upper region of Keyboard Shortcuts page;
"Apply to all" -what? to all what? I had to dig through the manual to see what it does, and all it would take to fix it is to call it "apply shortcut changes to all personas" without this information there is no way to know that there actually are some connections possible between personas. As if the for instance, brush size in pixel and draw persona must be separate.
"Ignore Modifier—Lets you create shortcuts using a single letter designation instead of using keyboard modifiers." says the manual, and I still do not get it. Does it allow me to pres only the letter in application without modifier keys and get what I want? No, as Ctrl+S is stil "save" and "Ctrl+Shift+S" is stil Save as. Does it filter out the input of Modifier keys while assigning new shortcuts? No. So what does it do? Maybe a better explanation in manual would help, and a more verbose checkbox title or tooltip.
"Load/Save" what? it loads and saves what? a file obviously, but what does that file contain? All shortcuts, or only those in focus? Maybe "Load Shortcut configuration" or something on that line would be better. to be continued...