View Menu Studio

[polochon]

It would be useful for the Studio menu to remain open while you check all the options you want, instead of closing each time an option is checked

[Jowday]

51 minutes ago, polochon said:

It would be useful for the Studio menu to remain open while you check all the options you want, instead of closing each time an option is checked

Yep - and it is a clumsy place to enable/disable them from so I have asked for alternatives. I would love a right click menu from the panels or a studio selector control from the toolbar.

And oh oh optional keyboard shortcuts too - that has toggle functionality: show if hidden, hide if visible.

[Rick G]

6 hours ago, polochon said:

It would be useful for the Studio menu to remain open while you check all the options you want, instead of closing each time an option is checked

+1

[garrettm30]

14 hours ago, polochon said:

It would be useful for the Studio menu to remain open

I understand the issue, but the paradigm of how menus work was established long ago, and although I doubt Serif actually has any control of how they function (which would be part of the OS), I would recommend that they do not change that standard even if they could. Instead, if they were to make a change, it would be to rethink whether putting them in a submenu is the best solution or if it could be replaced or supplemented with some other approach.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, garrettm30 said:

Instead, if they were to make a change, it would be to rethink whether putting them in a submenu is the best solution or if it could be replaced or supplemented with some other approach.

Just a few weeks ago I requested something similar for the Yate app:
To enable all columns in its main list view, you had to ctrl/right-click the column header and add or remove each column one by one from the context menu with many dozens (!) of items. Pain in the ass (and thumb on a trackpad), literally. So I proposed 1) adding submenus to at least avoid excessive scrolling, and 2) "Add All" and "Disable All" commands. The developer rejected submenus, and rightly so because he would have to define categories which would again not suit everyone. But only a week or so later, he then came with a panel idea with checkboxes similar to the iTunes View options, and with a short context menu like this:

Pretty good solution.
That's how things are done the Mac way.

[Jowday]

18 minutes ago, loukash said:

Just a few weeks ago I requested something similar for the Yate app:
To enable all columns in its main list view, you had to ctrl/right-click the column header and add or remove each column one by one from the context menu with many dozens (!) of items. Pain in the ass (and thumb on a trackpad), literally. So I proposed 1) adding submenus to at least avoid excessive scrolling, and 2) "Add All" and "Disable All" commands. The developer rejected submenus, and rightly so because he would have to define categories which would again not suit everyone. But only a week or so later, he then came with a panel idea with checkboxes similar to the iTunes View options, and with a short context menu like this:

Pretty good solution.
That's how things are done the Mac way.

Nothing new under the sun here - that model is widely used as a right click option over columns in Windows software at least for like 20 years. 🙂

That's why I hoped that right clicking panels could show something similar. Right clicking objects, seeing and selecting object specific properties... just used to it for decades.

[loukash]

1 minute ago, Jowday said:

Nothing new under the sun here - that model is widely used as a right click option over columns in Windows software at least for like 20 years.

Of course. Or in iTunes since, yeah, also 20 years. (Until Apple "reinvented" iTunes with v11 and beyond. I'm still using v10.7 on El Capitan…)

[Jowday]

4 minutes ago, loukash said:

Of course. Or in iTunes since, yeah, also 20 years. (Until Apple "reinvented" iTunes with v11 and beyond. I'm still using v10.7 on El Capitan…)

That's why I am not sure why right click options are not available on certain objects like the studio panels - and context sensitive right click options are lacking here and there in Affinity. I am so used to them since forever.

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, Jowday said:

I am so used to them since forever.

Right click is soooo Windows…
Where's my one button mouse anyway…? (Just last Monday I sold a fully functional 2005 eMac for CHF 90! With a white optical one button USB mouse! Still have the black mouse from my PowerMac G4. And the PowerMac still works, too. Since exact 20 years in my studio! Boots Panther and OS 9. With InDesign 2, Illustrator 10, Photoshop-forgot-which-version, and my beloved Freehand 9. Oh, those were the days…)

~~~

In iTunes 1.0, there was simply the View Options menu item that opened a modal window with checkboxes to pick your columns. Cmd-click on one of them to enable or disable all.
This simple model remained until v10.7 while only adding more checkboxes:

Additionally, you can of course also ctrl/right-click a column to open a context menu and select/deselect items from there. But in the past 20 years I've got accustomed to a simple cmd-J to open this modal window with checkboxes. Much faster.

———

Speaking of keyboard shortcuts:

You guys are aware that you can assign keyboard shortcuts to each and every panel, as well as to the Left and Right Studio to show and hide them, right?

[Jowday]

I can't think of anything easier or more intuitive than right clicking something to access object options. 🙂

[Jowday]

18 minutes ago, loukash said:

Speaking of keyboard shortcuts:

You guys are aware that you can assign keyboard shortcuts to each and every panel, as well as to the Left and Right Studio to show and hide them, right?

Yeah, almost, but when they don't toggle the visibility I am not quite happy. EDIT: They do! I was wrong.

But still. I use tons of software with tons of different keyboard shortcuts. I use them as much as I can... but having the options just a right click away is just the easiest way to get the job done without a another request to my human memory. In the end keyboard shortcuts are so MS-DOS and 1982.

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, Jowday said:

they don't toggle the visibility

On Mac they do. Although some behave slightly erratically, especially if docked and if the Text Frame panel is nearby.

But one of the first things I did was to set up Left/Right Studio on/off. Essential for getting things out of my way quickly.
With v1.9, you can now also assign shortcuts to your custom presets.
Frankly, Mac has an advantage here for having an extra modifier to choose from, so you don't run out of possible combinations as quickly.

[Jowday]

7 minutes ago, loukash said:

On Mac they do

I was wrong - they do toggle visibility. Excellent! Thanks!

For the record: I work on Windows 10, a Mac, an iPad and have a few Linux equipped old computers (OS updates just kills fine hardware). I am totally OS agnostic. What I produce on these machines matters the most. The computers and operating systems leaves me stone cold. 🙂

[loukash]

10 minutes ago, Jowday said:

The computers and operating systems leaves me stone cold. 🙂

That's all right. I remember you've mentioned that elsewhere earlier this or last week.
I've got 4 PCs in storage from my late father. Still haven't fully inspected them. I think they all run some flavor of Win 7, some Danish only. (I don't speak any Danish.) He was a Windows fan for 20 years because he could keep on tinkering with them without getting anything done while always having an excuse why he couldn't get anything done. And everyone would understand it, when he only mentioned having "problems with Windows". He was a "professional procrastinator", haha. A true artist…

[greyscale]

+1 on not having the panels buried in the View menu,

Either a Toolbar button or right-clicking on the Toolbar to access a Studio menu would do it for me..