Where is the MANUAL for Affinity Photo?

[EditorTom]

Where is the MANUAL for the software?

All these tutorials take forever to watch through to find the simplest information.  It's infuriating.   Software used to come with manuals.   Why is that no longer a thing?

[Komatös]

Hello @EditorTom and welcome to the forums.

The programmes help functions are help and, in my eyes, manuals in one. 

[DWright]

Hi @EditorTom,

We no longer produce printed manuals for our software but rather have an help function within the program, we also have a website that has the help for all of our programs and can be viewed using the following link.

https://affinity.help  

[EditorTom]

Thanks for your reply DWright.

 

Ok, so here i am in the app.   I want to select part of a layer and cut it.  How do I do that?   Hm, let's ask the 'help' function...

Q: "How to clip a layer?"

A: "Layer clipping.  Clipping involves masking part of a layer by placing it inside another layer."

 

Ok, let's try again:

Q: "How to select part of a layer"

 

Which one of these is going to help me?   It's not "cloning and healing", "refining the pixel selection", "exporting using Export..."

The problem is that I'm dependent on your search engine's ability to parse what I mean, which it's clearly not very good at doing.  Probably I'm using the wrong terminology for your program.  But that's the point: that's who a manual is for: someone who doesn't already know the ins and outs of your software.  

If I had manual, I'd either go to the contents and browse until I spotted something that looked close to what I wanted, or maybe I'd just fan the pages until my eye spotted the exact thing I was looking for.    

I know, you're going to tell me that's 'old fashioned'.  But it's fast and it WORKS and your solution doesn't.

Thanks anyway.

 

 

 

 

[Old Bruce]

3 minutes ago, EditorTom said:

Ok, so here i am in the app.   I want to select part of a layer and cut it.  How do I do that?   Hm, let's ask the 'help' function...

What type of layer?

Seeing as this is a topic about the lack of a manual I feel that I should put in my 2 cents worth... I too would like a PDF manual. As EditorTom has pointed out we need to almost know the answer before we can ask the question. A manual dealing with layers, tools, work area, resizing, (everything in other words) in sections would be helpful, everything I want to know about the Preferences. That would be easy to read in a section called The Preferences. setting keyboard shortcuts in preferences calls up a mess here.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, EditorTom said:

The problem is that I'm dependent on your search engine's ability to parse what I mean

No, you're not. You don't have to search at all.

When you first clicked on Help, one of your menu options was Affinity Designer Help (see @Old Bruce's screenshot). If you click that, you should have the full "book" with table of contents and you can browse, just like a manual. You can also see that if you visit the online Help site that @DWright mentioned. Here's a screenshot showing that Table of Contents:

[Pšenda]

6 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I do see the point of a printed manual. In olden days it was possible to sit in the Benghazi or on a train and flick through a book/manual. That's not really possible with a laptop. 

Is it a problem to print the necessary pages (or all of them)?

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, EditorTom said:

The problem is that I'm dependent on your search engine's ability to parse what I mean,

It is not true. You can use other search engines, like Google

https://www.google.com/search?q=How+to+clip+a+layer+site:affinity.help

https://www.google.com/search?q=How+to+select+part+of+a+layer+site:affinity.help

[v_kyr]

Look better elsewhere, like into some good third party books about Affinity Photo.

This above one for example has "1021 pages" describing all aspects of "Affinity Photo Desktop & iPad" and fulfills the needs of a (by Affinity itself missing) reference manual.

[EditorTom]

Walt's answer works for me.  That table of contents reveals the 'manual' to the extent one exists, and will probably work well enough for my needs.   I'd still love it if there were a way to get the whole thing down as a PDF, but I can work with this as is.  

Thanks everyone!

[EditorTom]

Oh, and thanks v_kyr for the reference to the third party 'manual'.   Those types of things have always been handy as well.

[EditorTom]

Psenda, great tip as well!

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, EditorTom said:

I'd still love it if there were a way to get the whole thing down as a PDF, but I can work with this as is.  

Someone has produced one, at least for Photo, though I'm not sure how up-to-date it is. Search the Resources section of the forums for manual and you'll find it.

 

[v_kyr]

Also, if you perform a Google search for example after:   

• resources pdf affinity photo site:forum.affinity.serif.com

you will get an overview of this forums resource section, where many people already created the one or other PDF manual etc. about Photo. - Things like ...

• Affinity Photo from 10,000 Feet - Free PDF
• Affinity Photo pdf manual for your enjoyment
• Affinity Photo 1.9.2 iPad - PDF Help file
• Affinity Designer 1.9.1 iPad Help File PDF
• Affinity Online Help Resource (Printable)
• Downloadable Affinity keyboard shortcut cheat sheets
• ... etc.

In general see also:

• Quick Tips: for finding Affinity content with Google Search

 

[Pšenda]

9 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Have you tried to print the help pages?

Yes, what should be the problem? Of course, I mainly use the electronic version, in which I can search much more conveniently (see my previous link).

P.S. And for browsing pages and pictures I have Affinity Workbooks.

[R C-R]

17 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I do see the point of a printed manual. In olden days it was possible to sit in the Benghazi or on a train and flick through a book/manual. That's not really possible with a laptop. 

It should be possible to browse through the built-in help topics as long as the app is installed, or browse through the online version anywhere an internet connection is available.

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

When I try to print the help file it does not print. Or rather the page is blank.

Yes, for the initial/default way it's started up in the MacOS Help Viewer (aka "/System/Library/CoreServices/Help Viewer.app"). - This is, because the focus here then lies on the "index.html" file in the HTML-help folder (the left overview/index side part).

So that is what you get first as default when pressing Cmd-p (print) there. - Well, if you navigate via the filesystem there where the HTML help files do reside and open the "index.html" with a webbrowser and then further open some of the index side links again but in another new webbrowser page the focus will be on the help contents page. If you now try to print (via Cmd-p) it should work for the specific selected and opened page!

 

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Yes, for the initial/default way it's started up in the MacOS Help Viewer

I did not notice any printing problems with the Win version.

Although I only printed a few times, even to a PDF, which I loaded into APublisher, and edited it before printing - deleting in the paper versiont redundant "See also" section, and displayed both Before/After images.

[v_kyr]

14 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Gordon Bennett. Now perhaps having a PDF version is not such a bad idea. 

It's always a good idea to also have a PDF file of that one either way!

I've also seen that the print buttons on the lower left side inside the "Help Viewer.app" are then removed/hidden (they are not available there). - There might be a reason for this, since if you open the help stuff inside a webbrowser (as I've shown above) the buttons would be there in the HTML code, but would not work at all there then!

[v_kyr]

13 hours ago, Pšenda said:

I did not notice any printing problems with the Win version.

I've talked about the MacOS handling/implementation via the systems "Help Viewer.app" there and how that behaves here.- On Windows systems the MS help system is slightly different handled/implemented (MS docs - Handling Online Help).

[Pšenda]

30 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

I've talked about the MacOS

Yes, I know. It was just a message for LondonSquirrel.

On 11/20/2021 at 12:37 AM, LondonSquirrel said:

Have you tried to print the help pages? What happens for you when you do?

 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, v_kyr said:

It's always a good idea to also have a PDF file of that one either way!

Maybe I am missing something but since all the help topics are built into the app, aren't they always available via the Help menu? Why have a second version of them using up disk space?

Considering this, I think the only thing that needs fixing (at least for the Mac version) is the ability to print out the pages, which I think could be done if they can enable the print button when viewing the HTML versions via a web browser.

[v_kyr]

58 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Maybe I am missing something

Follow the thread in terms of where LondonSquirrel tried to print out.

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

which I think could be done if they can enable the print button when viewing the HTML versions via a web browser

Try that and tell me what you realized then!

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Try that and tell me what you realized then!

What do you mean? I said if they can enable the print button when viewing the HTML version, not that it is enabled now. (I know it is not.)

[v_kyr]

22 minutes ago, R C-R said:

if they can enable the print button when viewing the HTML version, not that it is enabled now.  (I know it is not.)

Try and use Cmd-p instead there then!