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Collapsible Studio Tool Panels


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I found some 4+ years old threads on this, but nothing newer...

I am trying to switch from Adobe to Affinity across all three apps. One big feature missing from Affinity is the ability to collapse tool panels. This is less and less of an issue thanks to high-resolution displays, but one of my laptops is an old MacBook Pro with a 1280x800 display, and Affinity's panels take up a huge amount of screen real estate:

image.png.65dec0de820ad415b1d7c3f77a1d6561.png

I know I can hide all the panels with the tab key, but I don't want that...I just want to make the tool panels smaller when I'm not actively using them.

Pink Floyd was right. | Windows 10 · MacOS 10.14 · Arch Linux

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Assign a keyboard shortcuts to View > Show Tools

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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I have used the new(ish) feature for saving Studio Presets. One has several rarely used Panel detached from the right studio but they are collapsed into just the name, you do this by double clicking on the word. Here is a corner of the workspace. If I single click on one of the panel's name I get the whole size panel. Double click and it all collapses again.

1454174584_ScreenShot2021-04-25at11_17_53AM.png.0635401a717b86c1ad1e32fb50ffde1c.png

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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6 minutes ago, loukash said:

Assign a keyboard shortcuts to View > Show Tools

I appreciate the suggestion, but that doesn't work well when there are so many different tool panels.

Just now, Old Bruce said:

I have used the new(ish) feature for saving Studio Presets. One has several rarely used Panel detached from the right studio but they are collapsed into just the name, you do this by double clicking on the word. Here is a corner of the workspace. If I single click on one of the panel's name I get the whole size panel. Double click and it all collapses again.

I did notice the collapsing feature, but that's still not great on a low-resolution display. Collapsible toolbars on the sides of the window would be super awesome.

Pink Floyd was right. | Windows 10 · MacOS 10.14 · Arch Linux

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38 minutes ago, ClairelyClaire said:

Collapsible toolbars on the sides of the window would be super awesome.

Certainly would be great. You don't need the left or right 'studios' open at all, if you want you could try using only the collapsed panels.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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36 minutes ago, ClairelyClaire said:

that doesn't work well when there are so many different tool panels.

My bad, I missed the trailing "s" and read just "the ability to collapse tool panel".

38 minutes ago, ClairelyClaire said:

toolbars on the sides of the window

No offense intended, but it would be helpful if you would use consistent descriptions of the interface elements so that we know what you're talking about. :)
You may want to look up the built-in help how these UI parts are called, because these are the terms we're usually trying to use as well. (And sometimes we may also fail, haha…)

So, what you actually want to collapse are the "Studio Panels", right?

There are several ways to do that with keyboard shortcuts:

  • assign keyboard shortcuts to View > Studio > Show Left Studio / Show Right Studio / Hide Studio
  • assign keyboard shortcuts to the individual panels that you often want to hide/show

I'm using this all the time.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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2 hours ago, ClairelyClaire said:

I found some 4+ years old threads on this, but nothing newer...

If you have new information and additions to the previous request, then just add it, and thus bumped it (after all, as stated in the forum rules).

Repeatedly adding the same requirements, or refreshing them, does not increase their chances of implementation in any way - Serif has its plans and priorities.

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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19 hours ago, Pšenda said:

If you have new information and additions to the previous request, then just add it, and thus bumped it (after all, as stated in the forum rules).

Repeatedly adding the same requirements, or refreshing them, does not increase their chances of implementation in any way - Serif has its plans and priorities.

Thanks, I will do that in the future. In my own forum experience it's usually bad etiquette to necro multi-years-old threads, especially taking into account changes between software versions in that same span of time.

Pink Floyd was right. | Windows 10 · MacOS 10.14 · Arch Linux

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  • 2 years later...

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