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All UI Elements are too small on a 5k iMac


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Please get some of your developers/designers/testers 5k iMacs to test with. I'm sure the UI works well with a laptop/notebook sized screen but as far as I'm concerned it's unuseable on my iMac. I am 54 years of age and wear glasses but I work with loads of other apps on my iMac with no problem. I'm not asking you to change your UI - just to add the option to scale it up. I know you have some preferences to scale things up but none of them get anywhere near making the UI useable for me. I love your apps, I love your company, I just can't work with the miniscule icons and text. :)

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Hi amergin, we've actually already got 2 in the office and one of them is the primary machine of the developer who writes all the UI - and he runs it scaled so items are even smaller... :) I appreciate that the UI is too small for some users and we will obviously try to rectify this - but it is not a fault of the 5k iMac - elements on its screen are of similar size to those on my MacBook Pro (also using it with scaled display to reduce the size of the items on the screen!)

 

Sorry for the inconvenience it is causing you in the meantime :(

Matt

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am 56 years young (although one would never know by looking at my avatar) and am using Affinity Photo and Designer on an riMac (5K). I am also currently awaiting treatment for a cataract on my left eye which will happen sometime after the (hopefully) successful corticosteroid treatment for the inflammation I have in both eyes.

 

I have not had any more difficulty with the UI in these two programs than in any of the other programs which I use on this machine and I am certainly more than well pleased with the display on this iMac as it helps me to more clearly see when working. I am running in the default resolution.

 

I suppose that I am a glass half-full sort of guy. This bit of misfortune with my eyes has not discouraged me from continuing in my relatively recently begun photography endeavours nor in the excitement I feel when I see what I can create in Designer.  Rather it is propelling me (maybe that should be 'impelling me') forward and onward because I am fully aware of the usual, or inevitable, outcome of this diagnosis.

 

Perhaps a pair of 'terminal' glasses might assist you, amergin, or maybe simply adjusting the resolution on the display.

 

As MattP mentioned, perhaps there is a UI-changing option in the pipeline to rectify this for you and others who feel the same. Hopefully so; but, for me, both the UI and the UX are fantastic as they are and I know that they can become even better with time and input from the people who make up the user base - like you.

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I am using the 5k iMac, but my vision is fine, so I do not experience the issue. I however, am in support of an option to change ui element size. I can see how this could definitely be an issue for some, and just a preference for others. I suppose the only solution for now would be to reduce resolutions. Perhaps increasing constrast by changing background color could be helpful to some. Best of luck.

 Computer Specs (If it helps) iMac 5k 2015 4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz) 1TB Fusion Drive

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  • 2 weeks later...

The interface is definitely smaller on our 27" iMac (non-retina) than on my 21" iMac (also non-retina… sigh). I also find some icons a bit pokey. Most are fine, but the colour swatch palette seems particularly prone to me missing the icons I want to click that has me concentrating VERY hard whenever I select a swatch or eyedropper. It should be effortless, not a speed-hump.

 

Tools and top buttons are perfect, so perhaps its a difference of opinion between your developers? Out of curiosity, I checked icon sizes and this is what I found:

 

Top buttons:  36 x 36 pixels

Tools: 26 x 26 pixels

Add to swatches icon: 16 x 16 pixels

Colour Swatches: 14 x 14 pixels

Style Swatches: 44 x 44 pixels

 

Some of these do feel a bit small, and I'm amazed that the colour swatches should be the smallest icons in the whole application, while the style swatches are the largest. Please tell me that in the future, both sizes will be selectable options – that'll be awesome! (even better, add your super zoom slider to all swatch palettes so we can dynamically choose our own preferred sizes. They're square so they won't even pixelate)

 

Keep up the great work guys. You've got a winner here – our comments are only intended to make it waaaaaay better than the current crop of [Adobe] products.

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  • 1 month later...

I have the same problem seeing the tool icons on my larger screen since its size makes me sit further away.  I noticed this issue while trying an illustrator trial so I thought I would see if this program addressed the issue.  (There are many posts complaining about the icon size for all versions of illustrator.)  This might be a selling point for the users of larger screens or those who have older eyes since it really slows the work process down to move forward and squint.  At the moment I prefer Affinity's layout and price.  I hope you consider making icon size a choice in preferences.

 

Kimberly

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I guess the problem is that the UI graphics are pixel based and you can´t (or at least shoudn´t) scale them as it won´t produce 100% perfect results and the Affinity team definitely wouldn´t be proud about not perfect icons. 

 

(just image scaling an image by 1,5x and 1px would become 1.5pixels and a solid 1px line would have grey boarders added to it - just as an example) 

 

....Don´t know if a simple second set of bigger icons would be an option.

 

 

I actually don´t understand why Affinity does not allow to change the UI color as others would like to do, this should be easy... maybe they want to keep a certain color identity, corporate design ... hmm

 

 

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If an application is "Retina Ready", does it use raster or vector UI elements? Thought they would be made as SVG files and no longer as PNGs to allow any number of higher resolution devices and scaling.

 

If they are vectors, then scaling would be possible, but if pixel-based, then I can see how that would be a hug amount of work to create a whole new set of interface icons.

 

Please can a developer enlighten me on this – if my assumption is wrong, then it might stop a whole bunch of my requests/complaints/opinions before I even post them.

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  • 3 months later...

I am in agreement with all comments concerning options for increasing icon size.    Though I have only used the demo program for a few minutes, it was the first issue that I needed to resolve. The tool icons are just too small for me to identify without excessive effort.   After a half hour looking for preferences to adjust icon size I joined the chat to voice my disappointment with the lack of progress in correcting this oversight.  

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  • 1 month later...

Perhaps a small suggestion to those who are using Affinity Photo and/or Designer on the 27" riMac and are finding the current tool icons a bit smaller than they would prefer them would be to press the ctrl key and scroll to zoom whilst locating the tool you are after. Works a treat.

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Maybe moving over the icons with mouse to display bigger icon (like with loupe) would be better solution?

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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  • 1 month later...

Hi,

 

I am very new to Affinity photo and have same problem with small UI buttons, slider handles, etc..
A very good example of how other software handle this problem is the well known 3D application Blender. (www.blender.org).
May one of the developers of Affinity can download Blender (it is OpenSource and available for Mac, Windows Linux) and take a look at their UI.

Under File->User preferences-->Tab System there is a edit box called DPI. If you increase ore decrease that value all UI elements will get bigger or smaller and you can get it as big as you want.

I think the UI is based on vectors which it makes it very easy to scale any UI element without loosing quality.

 

So this is just an proposal from me, may it helps the developers to see what others are doing and finally it can lead into a better UI for Affinity as well.



 

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The small icons and lack of contrast between icons and background are the only things that keep Affinity Photo/Designer from being total joys to use.  We can't "fix" our eyes; we need Affinity to fix the icons/contrast issues by offering the option to adjust sizes and contrast.

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  • 2 months later...

Ideally a ppi based solution should be implemented. Blender does it best: a simple ppi value which seamlessly scales the GUI up and down. And an additional retina screen switch which doubles the pixel resolution of screen widgets (such as the grid).

 

And this is a real-time effect. Additionally, the mouse can be used to scale specific panels independently (hold down the ctrl key with the middle mouse button).

 

It really is the best and most flexible solution, and it is a shame 99% of existing software opts for fixed breakpoints instead.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am just trialling Affinity Design and Photo on a mac laptop, and my imediate response is: the icons in the UI are too hard to see.  

It would be helpful even, to be able to lighten the backgound. I tried this in preferences, and it did it a little bit, but still wasn't quite light enough to give more contrast.

I agree with the many users who posted on here, that an option to increase size or contrast would be very helpful, to a wide selection of users.

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  • 5 weeks later...

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