Can You Please Make the Studio Panel to Have Adjustable Width?

[Bynah]

This would be so very helpful to be able to keep it onboard but not always in the way.

[jmwellborn]

1 minute ago, Bynah said:

This would be so very helpful to be able to keep it onboard but not always in the way.

If you are using v. 1.10 you should be able to create a Studio Preset.  Just set up your Studio panel the way you want it to look, such as an extra width for one or more Panels, then go to VIEW/STUDIO PRESETS>Add Preset.   Perhaps this will  help.

 

[Bynah]

That is very nice to know, thank you for that. But, while you can make the panel wider, you cannot make it narrower, and this is what

I need. Unless their is a way and I can't find it.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Bynah said:

But, while you can make the panel wider, you cannot make it narrower, and this is what I need.

All panels have a minimum width you cannot go below, but unless the panel (or tabbed panel group) is already at that minimum, you should be able to make it narrower.

[Bynah]

Yes, I see that. But I would like to suggest that we have the option to go smaller.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Bynah said:

Yes, I see that. But I would like to suggest that we have the option to go smaller.

What would be the value of that if the smaller limit was so low that not all of the panel's horizontal contents could fit into it? We already have to scroll vertically in some panels to see everything in it. If we also had to scroll horizontally, I think very few people would opt for that because it would slow down most workflows.

[Bynah]

I think I would tend to make my horizontal information small in those panels so I could gain more width in my workspace. I have often tried, in vain, to make it smaller.

 

[wonderings]

16 hours ago, Bynah said:

I think I would tend to make my horizontal information small in those panels so I could gain more width in my workspace. I have often tried, in vain, to make it smaller.

 

This is exactly right. You can do this in Adobe and it is very handy when working on smaller screens. Lots of little things that I think have come from years of refinement by Adobe. They don't seem like huge things but are very functional for many people in various situations. 

[wonderings]

Now compare Indesign above to Publisher. Now this is on a 27" 5K screen so not a big deal. Move that to a 13" screen and it is a world of difference 

[Bynah]

yes, you understand what I am looking for and why. thank you. Hopefully it can be done. I have a 15" screen.

[R C-R]

16 hours ago, Bynah said:

I think I would tend to make my horizontal information small in those panels so I could gain more width in my workspace.

There is still a limit for how small panels can get before they become unusable. Consider for example the Color panel. For the Wheel display, if its size went below the current minimum, it would be almost impossible to set any color value precisely because one screen pixel would represent several different values. The same problem would occur for the Stroke panel slider -- any one position on it would represent many different stroke sizes.

More generally, anywhere there is a number entry field, if the panel gets too small, the numbers become unreadable, again because there are not enough screen pixels to render them clearly.

But perhaps more to the point, there are already dozens if not hundreds of complaints that just about everything in the UI is already too small to see clearly, so making things even smaller seems unlikely to be given a high priority.

Of course, you can always post something to the Features Requests & Suggestions forum & see what happens.

[Bynah]

I see what you are saying. I am not asking for the panel to be made smaller but only that it could have the option to go smaller through all the Affinity programs. Sometimes I just use the layers panel and brushes and that is all I need so my panel could be smaller and I could gain precious needed space on my work surface.

thank you for the suggestion about feature requests and suggestions. I thought this was where I placed this conversation to begin with.

[Bynah]

oh, yes, I did. that is where this conversation is.😊

[wonderings]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

There is still a limit for how small panels can get before they become unusable. Consider for example the Color panel. For the Wheel display, if its size went below the current minimum, it would be almost impossible to set any color value precisely because one screen pixel would represent several different values. The same problem would occur for the Stroke panel slider -- any one position on it would represent many different stroke sizes.

More generally, anywhere there is a number entry field, if the panel gets too small, the numbers become unreadable, again because there are not enough screen pixels to render them clearly.

But perhaps more to the point, there are already dozens if not hundreds of complaints that just about everything in the UI is already too small to see clearly, so making things even smaller seems unlikely to be given a high priority.

Of course, you can always post something to the Features Requests & Suggestions forum & see what happens.

If you look at the screen shots I posted above showing Adobe's method you see there really is no limit. They slide down to a very small size that is icon based which is still usable and saves so much space. When you click on those they pop out and become a full size panel and go back again when you click on the icon once more. This UI is very simple and functional. The screen shot shows what I am talking about. Small icons taking up little screen space and yet fully functional when you need that tab 

[Old Bruce]

There is a difference between "Make Narrower" and "Collapsable". I would like to see Collapsable panels as is possible with the various Adobe products, but there is a limit on how narrow we can make a panel and still be able to use it as R C-R has pointed out.

24 minutes ago, Bynah said:

Sometimes I just use the layers panel and brushes and that is all I need so my panel could be smaller...

Look into using View > Studio Preset you can set up one for just the Layers and Brushes and that would be it for panels. Another could have more of the Panels you need for different types of work.

Plus you can have them free floating and a double click will collapse them to their name only so there would be no Left or Right Studio. Top is with the two panels expanded and the Lower is with them collapsed.

[Bynah]

Now that is helpful. thank you for that. But I agree with Wonderings that a thin sideline of icons would be fantastic. Then you could just click the one you need and it's there instead of having to reset. But if I am just using the layers panel and the brush, and I need them open as I change layers and brushes often, the width on them is overkill. I still would hope they could go smaller.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, wonderings said:

If you look at the screen shots I posted above showing Adobe's method you see there really is no limit.

Not to quibble over minor details, but even for an icon-based UI with pop-out expansion, there is a limit to how small each icon can be before there just are not enough screen pixels to tell one from another.

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

I would like to see Collapsable panels as is possible with the various Adobe products...

How does that differ from the collapsable option we already have in the Affinity apps? To collapse a panel or tabbed panel group to just its header, just double-click on it. To expand it, just click once on the collapsed header.

[Bynah]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

How does that differ from the collapsable option we already have in the Affinity apps? To collapse a panel or tabbed panel group to just its header, just double-click on it. To expand it, just click once on the collapsed header.

Now that is helpful. I didn't know I could do that..

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Bynah said:

Now that is helpful. thank you for that.

If you mean the View > Studio Preset options @Old Bruce mentioned, note that @jmwellborn mentioned that in the second post of this discussion.

1 hour ago, Bynah said:

But if I am just using the layers panel and the brush, and I need them open as I change layers and brushes often, the width on them is overkill.

At least for the Layers panel, it is usually a good idea to keep it wide enough that you can see either at least enough of the name of the layer to tell it from others, or if it is unnamed, the parenthetical layer type suffix.

[Bynah]

sorry, I am a little slow

 

7 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Not to quibble over minor details, but even for an icon-based UI with pop-out expansion, there is a limit to how small each icon can be before there just are not enough screen pixels to tell one from another.

How does that differ from the collapsable option we already have in the Affinity apps? To collapse a panel or tabbed panel group to just its header, just double-click on it. To expand it, just click once on the collapsed header.

 

[chbrier]

2 hours ago, Bynah said:

sorry, I am a little slow

 

 

You're not slow. Some people just like to be contradictory and try to make you feel like you are wrong for asking questions. Your questions where completely on point and I would like the same option as well

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, chbrier said:

Some people just like to be contradictory and try to make you feel like you are wrong for asking questions.

Nope. We are just trying to make sure the OP knows about all the existing options, like Studio presets & the current option to collapse & expand panels & tabbed panel groups, which may (or may not, know way to know) influence what if anything the OP wants to add to the Feature Request forum.

[chbrier]

23 hours ago, R C-R said:

Nope. We are just trying to make sure the OP knows about all the existing options, like Studio presets & the current option to collapse & expand panels & tabbed panel groups, which may (or may not, know way to know) influence what if anything the OP wants to add to the Feature Request forum.

Nope. You were being dismissive after the op was very clear on what they were requesting. You repeatedly made comments that were dismissive and even patronizing. Maybe go back and read through the thread to see how you came off. 
 

Some of you guys make people not want to even ask questions here because of the way you respond and then you pretend you don't know the tone you were giving off.

[R C-R]

48 minutes ago, chbrier said:

You repeatedly made comments that were dismissive and even patronizing. Maybe go back and read through the thread to see how you came off. 

Nothing I said was meant to be dismissive or patronizing. In fact, I think you misinterpreted the 'sorry, I am a little slow' comment, which I think was just about the timing of a few of the replies, not that he was apologizing for being slow-witted. Nobody thought that he was.

[Wosven]

On 10/8/2021 at 7:44 PM, wonderings said:

If you look at the screen shots I posted above showing Adobe's method you see there really is no limit.

And  you can have more than one column of them, and if a column's got too much icons, you'll have the usual arrow showing you can scroll to display the ones at the bottom (very useful on small screen).

 

Now, is Affinity apps, the Panel can behave strangelly out of a columns:

• Reducing themselves too much

 

When collapsed and put together (it's difficult, the top panel should be expanded or it won't stick)

• They don't stay "sticky" together, perhaps because they've got different minimum width default, and when clicking on a tab to open it, the stickiness will be lost 50% of the time (the Layers panel lost it stickiness below after opening the Color panel). In the second image, the 3 bottom panel were opened keeping their stickiness, but opening the top one bug...)

Another problem with those floating panels, is that when you want to move them, most of the time it won't grab the panels, or only for 1 second, and while dragging, it'll want to snap to something and you'll end up just moving a panel instead of all like in the 1st second...

So I'll say... Nice try, but it need more work to be usable.