Collapse panels to the side

[Thane5]

This is how i would like to have my UI arranged in Affinity Photo:

I do this because i find it difficult to find panels if they are crammed behind other tabs somewhere in the default area on the right. Also, by giving them their own column, they have more space and are better readable. 

Unfortunately this takes a lot away from the canvas area, so if i want to have a proper look at my image, i have to hide the UI by pressing Tab. But then everything is hidden, including the Toolbar and colour picker, which i constantly use.

The only half-decent solution to this is dragging the panels out and using them as floating windows, which allows me to collapse them:

But this also is far from perfect: 

- It doesn't follow the main window around, so moving Affinity Photo to my Wacom display is a pain

- The click detection feels buggy, sometimes it requires two clicks to collapse a panel area.

- It looks unfinished, and is difficult to see on a busy project.

 

I think Affinity needs some way to collapse these areas to the side, while still beeing connected to the main Window.

Adobe CC had a system like this for years, where panels can be reduced to a small button (By clicking the two arrows on the top right), that can be dragged around or stay docked to the side.

Autodesk Maya also has a very good implementation of this, where windows can be docked as slim vertical tabs, that you can toggle with a single click and even scroll through with the mousewheel.

[thomaso]

Agree +1

Additionally to all aspects above: I also appreciate the competitor's feature that bars and panels may even get set to slide-in automatically, just by hovering / without the need to click. Besides for the (docked) panels in Affinity this could also be useful for the horizontal bars, and in particular to unfold any hidden content of the context bar. For faster access to these functions which might be needed for a short period only and thus currently require to open the pop-up twice, at least as long as there aren't keyboard shortcuts possible for tasks like these set of selection/visibility options and "Lock Children".

 

@Thane5, in the time being: For working on a small screen, I have customized the keyboard shortcuts for "Hide Studio" and "Toggle UI" so when pressing the Tab key then only the panels disappear, leaving the tools and the horizontal bars visible 🙂. Also, for simplicity, I added key commands to hide the left (Ctrl <) and right (Opt <) panel sets separately.

[Intuos5]

I would love to see collapsible studios (panels), I usually work using a second column for studios, which I exclusively use for editing things. So when I don't need to edit appearances or strokes, I would like to collapse all these panels to icons on the right. That way, I can both easily access all my panels and hide all of them away with the press of a button. Using tab to get the canvas only mode is not what I prefer, since I always need to have my layers, colour and navigator panel open.

See competitor:

 

[walt.farrell]

23 minutes ago, Intuos5 said:

I usually work using a second column for studios, which I exclusively use for editing things. So when I don't need to edit appearances or strokes, I would like to collapse all these panels to icons on the right.

As a workaround, or alternate workflow, you might consider setting up a Studio Preset for "not editing something" and another for "editing things". Then with a simple keyboard shortcut you could switch between the layouts.

That function is available in all the Affinity applications, and is described in the Help. E.g., here for Publisher, but it's the same in all three applications.

[Mithferion]

As in every other Topic requesting this, I comment that it's a really handy way to organize the Workspace. Hope we can see it soon!

Best regards!

[Intuos5]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

As a workaround, or alternate workflow, you might consider setting up a Studio Preset for "not editing something" and another for "editing things". Then with a simple keyboard shortcut you could switch between the layouts.

That function is available in all the Affinity applications, and is described in the Help. E.g., here for Publisher, but it's the same in all three applications.

Thanks for the suggestion, I was suspecting that the software wouldn't remember the tabs that were opened if I have nested tabs, but it's nice that it does propagate this across multiple presets. It would be more convenient though if the shortcuts to switch between studio presets would be toggles that can be configured. (e.g. to switch between preset 1 and 2 and back to 1).

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Intuos5 said:

It would be more convenient though if the shortcuts to switch between studio presets would be toggles that can be configured. (e.g. to switch between preset 1 and 2 and back to 1).

Might be nice to make that suggestion in its own topic, so it doesn't get lost.

[Mithferion]

Meanwhile, if I feel I need more space and have no use for the Sutios at the time, I go for Ctrl + Shift + H:

Best regards!

[Intuos5]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Might be nice to make that suggestion in its own topic, so it doesn't get lost.

Yeah, I'll be pumping out a large topic with all the keyboard shortcut things that I miss in Affinity shortly, including brush GUIs. 

[Vex]

Just here to add my feedback on this (old) suggestion.

I use Affinity's Mac products on some older hardware with super low-res displays - my 13" MBP is only 1280x800; my 11" MBA is only 1366x768.

It makes for a cramped UI - vertical collapsing would be super useful.

 

 

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Vex said:

vertical collapsing would be super useful.

Vertical collapsing already exists; just double-click on the title ify a panel. 

This topic is about collapsing to the side, I think

 

[Old Bruce]

On Mac any way we have to have the panels detached from the left and right studios in order for the double clicking to free up the screen real estate.

[Vex]

In any event, the panels take up way too much space on a low-resolution display. This is one feature Adobe has and Affinity needs.