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There is no option for placing a printer icon on the tool bar. Personally I never missed it. Is there a specific reason that you don't like Ctrl+P?  You can re-map the shortcut perhaps to F12. A bit faster than Ctrl+P. ;)

 

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55 minutes ago, Marilyn said:

As there's no printer icon and I don't like having to use CTRL & P I would like to create a printer icon on the tool bar, how do I do this please?

Ditto -  I miss several classic toolbar options in all Affinity apps but Serif decided not to have them. 

They should be optional at least - plus I would like custom icons too that I can assign the same actions that we can currently assign to keyboard shortcuts. 

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
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On 5/4/2020 at 8:45 AM, Marilyn said:

As there's no printer icon and I don't like having to use CTRL & P I would like to create a printer icon on the tool bar, how do I do this please?

Ditto and Ditto to Jowday too!

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On 5/4/2020 at 10:38 AM, Joachim_L said:

[...] Is there a specific reason that you don't like Ctrl+P?  You can re-map the shortcut perhaps to F12. A bit faster than Ctrl+P. ;)

 

Yes, CTRL+P or even F12 isn't as convenient as clicking on an icon, i. e. when working with a graphic tablet and a pen.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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5 hours ago, Andy05 said:

Yes, CTRL+P or even F12 isn't as convenient as clicking on an icon, i. e. when working with a graphic tablet and a pen.

OK, but you could still open the print dialog from the menu, right? That would mean two taps with the pen or whatever, but realistically how many seconds would that cost you over the course of a workday?

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Actually, putting away the tablet from my lap, then taking my keyboard from the desk for pressing some shortcuts (and still having to deal with the print dialog from the menu) takes multiple longer than clicking on "OK" in the print dialog with the pen. The print dialog would open either way. It's two "taps"/click/key press regardless whether you open it by icon/pen, mouse or keyboard.

But then again, why did Affinity implement ANY keyboard shortcut for the printing dialog AT ALL? Why are there icons for "Auto adjust", "liquify persona" in AP? They could also just be an item in the main menu, couldn't they? I mean, c'mon, how many seconds do you save by using those instead of using a menu over a workday? ;-)

An icon for printing being just one example. Others might want other icons in the toolbar, because they need it quite often. It's not like the program isn't usable without a more customisable toolbar. But if it'd be more convenient, why not?

There's a function to edit/assign shortcuts to the menu items already. There's a function to customise the toolbar to a degree already. It's not like some dramatic coding would be required for combining existing functions in order to have a more customisable toolbar.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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4 hours ago, Andy05 said:

Actually, putting away the tablet from my lap, then taking my keyboard from the desk for pressing some shortcuts (and still having to deal with the print dialog from the menu) takes multiple longer than clicking on "OK" in the print dialog with the pen.

Are you talking about a toolbar icon that opens the print dialog window or something else? If what you mean is a one-click "OK" icon that immediately starts printing the document, bypassing the print dialog window completely, since there are multiple options in the print dialog window (including number of copies, scale factor, & possibly more than a dozen other options depending on the current printer) how useful would that actually be?

If you just mean a toolbar icon that opens the print dialog window, can't you use the pen & tablet to access that from the menu? It is only one extra tap, right?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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3 hours ago, R C-R said:

Are you talking about a toolbar icon that opens the print dialog window or something else? If what you mean is a one-click "OK" icon that immediately starts printing the document, bypassing the print dialog window completely, since there are multiple options in the print dialog window (including number of copies, scale factor, & possibly more than a dozen other options depending on the current printer) how useful would that actually be?

If you just mean a toolbar icon that opens the print dialog window, can't you use the pen & tablet to access that from the menu? It is only one extra tap, right?

I know it sounds ridiculous that I am complaining about having to go to 'file & print' before the option comes up in order to print but why have they removed the icon from the toolbar?  Why not let us have the facility to allow us creatures of habit to add the icon back if that's what we want?  Some features are used more than others and I design & print greetings cards every week so this extra click is a nuisance. 

Thank you for all of your feedback, it is interesting to hear things from different points of view even if it doesn't fix the issue :)

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6 hours ago, R C-R said:

If you just mean a toolbar icon that opens the print dialog window, can't you use the pen & tablet to access that from the menu? It is only one extra tap, right?

... as it would be for using alligments, snapping on/off, etc. etc. 

Yes, it's just one click. As it is for other functions which are currently available on the toolbar. Your argument against a print icon as "it's just one tap" is basically an argument against almost all of the icons in the toolbar - all of them are just one tap away in some menus. So, basically - why having a toolbar at all? ;-) 

And I was not talking about an "instant 2 print" option. Though, this might be useful for most basic users as well, as the vast majority of print outs is using the same settings - at least in the non professional environment.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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1 hour ago, Andy05 said:

Yes, it's just one click. As it is for other functions which are currently available on the toolbar. Your argument against a print icon as "it's just one tap" is basically an argument against almost all of the icons in the toolbar - all of them are just one tap away in some menus. So, basically - why having a toolbar at all? ;-) 

No, all I am saying is opening the print dialog window to print a document is not something routinely done anywhere near as often as accessing the other items available on the toolbar. So that one extra click or tap is not going to add up to a significant amount of lost time over the course of a workday.

Consider also that the toolbar can display only a limited number of items before it is not wide enough to display the ones on the right without clicking/tapping on the icon to display a list of the remaining ones. So even if the available screen width to display the toolbar is extremely large, which for many users it never will be, some of its items will always require an extra click/tap to access them, particularly if the option to display both names & icons is in use.

I think this is why the developers decided to limit the number of items that can be added to the toolbar, excluding among others an item to open the print dialog window, which itself uses a lot of screen space.

Does that make sense to you?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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51 minutes ago, R C-R said:

No, all I am saying is opening the print dialog window to print a document is not something routinely done anywhere near as often as accessing the other items available on the toolbar. So that one extra click or tap is not going to add up to a significant amount of lost time over the course of a workday.

Seriously? Your argumentation is getting more and more ridiculous now. How often - honestly - are you fiddling with the Assistant Manager in your daily workflow? In case you didn't know (as one usually use that one once in a blue moon, more likely even only once after installing the app): the Assistant Manager has its place in the toolbar - per standard! How often are you using the liquify persona in your daily workflow? Or Auto Levels etc.?  Following your argumentation, one has to deem that one more important and more often to be used than printing something. I don't think so. 

It's not about the couple of seconds I might save. Because, again, you wouldn't need ANY toolbar when following that route. Keyboard shortcuts and menu items would just serve the same purpose. What's the current toolbar good for, if it's not for saving a couple of extra clicks or taps per day? 

52 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Consider also that the toolbar can display only a limited number of items before it is not wide enough to display the ones on the right without clicking/tapping on the icon to display a list of the remaining ones. So even if the available screen width to display the toolbar is extremely large, which for many users it never will be, some of its items will always require an extra click/tap to access them, particularly if the option to display both names & icons is in use.

No-one requested for having all options available simultanously as clickable icons in a toolbar. I for one removed some of the standard icons as I don't need them. Hence I think it's probably a good idea letting the user decide, which icons he wants (or needs) and which he doesn't. Wait! What? That function already exist? Exactly! It DOES exist already. So, why not adding the option for other useful things, too? Like, let's say, "print"?

56 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think this is why the developers decided to limit the number of items that can be added to the toolbar, excluding among others an item to open the print dialog window, which itself uses a lot of screen space.


The Assistant manager opens a pop-up window, the mask icon, the alignment icon and the snapping icon open drop down fields - latter covering quite some space to. What was your argument again? 

Again, I'm fine with that the developers decided to limit the amount of icons in a toolbar. But why are they restricting the customisation of it to anyone's liking beyond the initially available icons? I'm repeating myself here as well, but there's an option to assign keyboard shortcuts and the toolbar already is customisable to some degree. So it doesn't require new programming routines to implement more icons/functions for a better customisable toolbar.

Point is, people are different. So are their workflows. I, for once, never use Auto Levels/Contract etc. But I switch the grids on/off pretty often. An icon for that would be more useful for me. For others it's printing... The developers might have a different workflow in mind. I. e. they might not have to print out proofs/concepts every so often, so that could be one reason for why they don't add "print" as direct access from the toolbar - because they simply rarely print something. That doesn't make such option obsolete, does it?
 
 

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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33 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

Seriously? Your argumentation is getting more and more ridiculous now.

Seriously, I am not arguing about anything. I am simply explaining why I think the developers decided to limit the number of items that can be added to the toolbar. After all, if they add an icon to open the print dialog window because some users would like that, then how could they justify not doing the same for any of dozens of other items some users might also want to add to it?

If they did that then I think a lot of users would start complaining that it was too difficult to scroll through all of them to find the ones they wanted & start requesting enhancements like a search field or even a completely different UI. They also would need to design all the new icons (which at least for the Mac versions could be as many as 4 or more for each of them, two each for the light & dark UI, 1x & 2x sizes for retina & non-retina Macs, & maybe some monochrome ones as well).

So it is not as if this would be a trivial task, nor precisely because people are different would any of these things make everybody happy. It is just the nature of the beast.

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Just now, R C-R said:

After all, if they add an icon to open the print dialog window because some users would like that, then how could they justify not doing the same for any of dozens of other items some users might also want to add to it?

Exactly my point! Most, if not all, functions which can have a keyboard shortcut assigned to it, should have an icon which could get added to the toolbar. The basic program routines for that already exist. The whole "print" issue is just an example.
 

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If they did that then I think a lot of users would start complaining that it was too difficult to scroll through all of them to find the ones they wanted & start requesting enhancements like a search field or even a completely different UI. They also would need to design all the new icons (which at least for the Mac versions could be as many as 4 or more for each of them, two each for the light & dark UI, 1x & 2x sizes for retina & non-retina Macs, & maybe some monochrome ones as well).

So it is not as if this would be a trivial task, nor precisely because people are different would any of these things make everybody happy. It is just the nature of the beast.

That's what's part of developing a good software, you know? Not just adding new fancy stuff which looks good for showcasing in ads, but also improving existing functions. Customisable toolbars are standard in quite a lot of programs for a reason.

I don't know how much effort Affinity puts into research and QA. But one of my clients was developing software. I witnessed a plethora of independent tests in the sector which showed that a (fully) customisable toolbar is something users want rather than a ready-made one, limited by the developers decision for what they deem as important for a user's workflow. Hence, apps with toolbars usually allow the user to decide. 

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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25 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

That's what's part of developing a good software, you know?

I know that a huge part of developing really good software is deciding what not add to it. When that is ignored what invariably results is bloatware that is increasingly hard to maintain & keep reasonably bug free, consumes system resources that adversely affect the performance of both that app & other processes running on the machine, may compromise the security of the machine by inadvertently increasing the exploitable 'attack surface' of malware, & otherwise lead to significant problems for end users & developers alike.

Thankfully, Serif has decided not to go that route with the Affinity line.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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5 hours ago, R C-R said:

I know that a huge part of developing really good software is deciding what not add to it

Your whole comment is rather pointless in this discussion as there is already a customisable toolbar available in the app. It just lacks more options. And if you deem those as "bloatware" or if devs can't add a couple of dozens of icons and links for it without performance or stability issues, they have way more problems than a non-customisable toolbar. 

Honestly, do you really think, that extending the options for the current customisable toolbar could cause performance or stability issues? Or are you just trying to argue for the sake of arguing? As that's how it appears to me by now. If former applies, I highly recommend that you keep your current stable versions of the apps and ignore all future upgrades. As the devs might have added more bloatware and tons of exploitable new features to them!

On a more serious note - your argumentation is right, if this would be a completely new feature request. And I agree with most of what you said for such. But neither of your arguments is valid in this thread's discussion.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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6 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

Your whole comment is rather pointless in this discussion as there is already a customisable toolbar available in the app.

Yes there is, but adding dozens of new icon buttons to it means each of those icons in all their forms (light, dark, 1x, 2x, etc.) must be added to the apps & each of them linked to the appropriate feature.

Because on Macs there is an option for two different font UI sizes (& now for Mojave & later 3 different UI styles) and because there is an option to display both toolbar icons & text, and the apps support eleven different languages (& possibly more in the future) and because icons that will not fit in the available width of the toolbar always must be displayed in a vertical popup menu with text even with the 'icon only' option, there is nothing simple about implementing this while making sure everything continues to work as expected as the app is updated with new features & revisions to the behavior of existing ones.

Of course, there is even more to it than that because they are simultaneously developing six desktop apps (three each for Macs & Windows), each of which has multiple personas & each of those personas has its own customizable toolbar; the Mac apps must support normal & separated window modes; & everything needs to work flawlessly when running on a variety of OS versions, including ones yet to be released.

If you consider all that, it should be obvious doing this would make it substantially harder to maintain & debug the apps & delay even longer the release of  updates implementing major new features & improvements many of us have been requesting for years.

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12 hours ago, R C-R said:

Yes there is, but adding dozens of new icon buttons to it means each of those icons in all their forms [... more elaboration of how difficult and how much workload are needed got deleted ...]

Ok, now I got you ! You obviously never worked in a business or for a client with more than 3-5 employees. As otherwise you wouldn't just post such a nonsense when talking about developing such applications als Affinity does.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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11 hours ago, Andy05 said:

Ok, now I got you ! You obviously never worked in a business or for a client with more than 3-5 employees. As otherwise you wouldn't just post such a nonsense when talking about developing such applications als Affinity does.

You still don't get it. If you have access to one of the Mac Affinity apps like AP,  take a look in its Resources folder & maybe you will.

For example, for the five persona toolbar icons alone forty png files (8 for each persona) are required to support all the display modes. Each of them must have a unique file name & be designed to have the appropriate appearance for that mode, including taking into consideration variations in the UI gamma. But that is just part of it. Not only must the app be programmed to display the correct icon for each display mode & make sure clicking on one of them actually switches to the correct persona, it must also be programmed to display the correct 'disabled' version when that persona is not available & either ignore clicking on it or display the correct message explaining why it isn't available.

Similar considerations apply to all the other items that can be added to the toolbar. As it is now, there are about 3100 png files in the app's resources folder. Most are for items that do not currently appear in the toolbar but there are several hundred that do. Adding a few dozen items to the customizable toolbar list could easily raise that number into the thousands. Each of them would require a unique file name different from the 3100 existing ones, as well as designing each of them to have the appropriate appearance for the intended display mode.

Add to that the work needed to make sure each item displays the appropriate tooltip in each of the 11 supported languages & where deemed appropriate 11 languages worth of messages for the disabled ones.

There is nothing nonsensical about the formidable amount of work that would be needed to expand the customizable toolbar feature. Even as it is now, there are still occasional errors & omissions in the betas, & a few of them involving language support are still present in the retail releases.

Edited by R C-R
fixed typo

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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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*sigh* You forgot to mention that Affinity surely has to hire 40 people to create 40 different icons... Seriously, did you ever create anything UI related in your life? I don't think so. Otherwise you'd have known better that creating icons in different colour schemes and sizes don't require 40 individual processes for creation.

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

it must also be programmed to display the correct 'disabled' version

No. Or do you get the same icons now in all your scenarios? You can ignore it as often as you want, but I'll tell you again: That code for a customisable toolbar already exists. The links already exist. The translations already exist (i. e. in menus). The only thing to do is connecting this already existing stuff with - admittedly, new to create - icons. (Which any average gifted designer could finish within 1-2 workdays - in all resolutions and colour schemes.)

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

adding a few dozen items to the customizable toolbar list could easily raise that number into the thousands.

Time to give up, someone comes with arguments of the 80ies ("WOAH! THOUSANDS OF FILES! HAAALP!"). I'm not living in the holy times when floppy discs have been status quo anymore.

If you feel better: You won, I'm out. As you'll just continue to discuss with arguments which apply to new massive features but not for small adjustments to existing ones. And I really don't want to waste more time on this pointless discussion as we won't find a consensus as long as you think the the developers are incapable of connecting existing links and text with icons properly or as long as you're worried about thousands of tiny files on your device(s).

My previous advice is gold now: Never upgrade your current Affinity apps, you might fall into the trap of getting more files, more features and - who knows? - a full customisable toolbar one day!

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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For Macs ...

Quote

Printing

People appreciate the extensive options offered by the printing system, and expect them to be available in any app. If applicable, your app should integrate with the printing system so users can print documents, images, PDFs, and other content.

Make printing discoverable. All apps that support printing should include a Print option in the File menu. If your app has a toolbar, consider offering a Print button there as well for convenience. To avoid cluttering the toolbar, make it an optional button that can be added by the user through customization. See File Menu and Toolbars.

Enable printing only when it's possible to print. If there’s nothing onscreen to print or no printers are available, the Print menu should be disabled. If your app implements a custom print button, disable or hide it when printing isn’t possible.

For developer guidance, see Printing Programming Guide for Mac.

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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21 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

If your app has a toolbar, consider offering a Print button there as well for convenience. To avoid cluttering the toolbar, make it an optional button

The macOS Finder never had a Print icon in its toolbar but in its menu.

In this matter it may appear interesting that macOS offers to print a document from its Finder window, regardless which application the document belongs to. That way the user does not need to open the according app + go there to the print menu but can do it just from the mac finder directly. The Mac will automatically open + close the app for the user – for instance if one just wants to print a greeting card without altering its layout before.

Now, obviously this macOS workflow does not work properly with Affinity, it starts but seems to get stuck during this routine.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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1 hour ago, thomaso said:

The macOS Finder never had a Print icon in its toolbar but in its menu.

Most Apple programs here (Mail, Pages, TextEdit, ...) don't have a print button at all on their toolbar and instead just a menu entry for printing. Thus if following the design style most of Apple's own apps are build, the Affinity products are in good company. - What I showed above, in the previous post, is what Apple's "Human Interface Guidelines" tells related to that theme.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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