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Affinity Photo changes filetype for image file formats to Affinity Photo File in Windows File Explorer


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If you set any image file to always open with Affinity Photo in the Windows File Explorer, Affinity Photo changes the filetype for that image file format to "Affinity Photo File", making it impossible to sort files by type in the Windows File Explorer. Other programs don't do that.

Example:

filetype.png.4d4ce332f10cce99a7ba2fd6c485afde.png

Windows 10 Home 64 / AMD Ryzen 1700 @ 3.6 GHz / Asus Prime B350-Plus / 32 GB RAM / GeForce RTX 3060 12GB with latest studio drivers
Affinity Suite V2 latest official versions

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45 minutes ago, M1000 said:

Affinity Photo changes the filetype for that image file format to "Affinity Photo File"

No, Affinity Photo did not change the file type, Windows done that. Why? Because you told it to. When you tell Windows to open a file with a specific app, like AP, Windows may associate, think you want to use that app to open all of those file types.

To change it, (I have them set to open using Windows Photo Viewer), right-click on an image, then either select properties or Open With... Select another app you want to use to open the image (file type) when you double-click on it from a File Explorer window.

 

Affinity Photo 2.4..; Affinity Designer 2.4..; Affinity Publisher 2.4..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD

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On 4/27/2022 at 2:42 AM, Ron P. said:

No, Affinity Photo did not change the file type

As you can see in the following example, the filetype in Windows Explorer is determined by the program you choose in the open with dialogue.
LibreOffice Draw for example changes the type to the full name of the image formats. Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint keep the original type, while the Affinity Suite changes all to generic Affinity files which makes it impossible to sort files by type in the Windows File Explorer.

filetype_02.png.488b3abd4fb2b14d45ccce073343c99f.png

Windows 10 Home 64 / AMD Ryzen 1700 @ 3.6 GHz / Asus Prime B350-Plus / 32 GB RAM / GeForce RTX 3060 12GB with latest studio drivers
Affinity Suite V2 latest official versions

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7 hours ago, M1000 said:

the filetype in Windows Explorer is determined by the program you choose in the open with dialogue.

This is correct, which is not AP making that determination, it's your OS. I can choose Open With all day long and choose AP, AD or any other app, and the association does not change, unless I check the box beside Always Use this App... That's why I say it's not Affinity, you told your OS you want those file types associated/opened with Affinity Apps.

 

 

 

Affinity Photo 2.4..; Affinity Designer 2.4..; Affinity Publisher 2.4..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD

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If you look at your first attached image you can see that the file extensions have not changed, therefore, obviously, the file type has not changed, only the programme that they are associated with! The filetype column lists the programme that is associated with that actual file type. If you want to just see the actual file type in it's own column, right click on the bar with the column headers, click on "More" and add "File extension". 

ice_screenshot_20220428-110232.png

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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On 4/28/2022 at 11:31 AM, Ron P. said:

This is correct, which is not AP making that determination, it's your OS.

When a Affinity Photo is installed it is up to the program what happens when you associate a filetype to the program via "open with". Because Affinity puts entries in the Windows Registry during installation which determine that the Type is set to Affinity Photo for all the image formats. So Affinity indirectly changes the Type. It is not common practice to set the same Type for different extensions because it results in a bad user experience. Just have a look at the examples of the other programs. Clip Studio for example just doesn't put these entries in the Registry so the types stay the same. There's just no sense in making it like Affinity does.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 12:00 PM, PaulEC said:

If you look at your first attached image you can see that the file extensions have not changed

I'm fully aware of that and never wrote that the extensions changed. It's about the Type column.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 12:00 PM, PaulEC said:

If you want to just see the actual file type in it's own column, right click on the bar with the column headers, click on "More" and add "File extension".

This is a workaround which should not be necessary.

Windows 10 Home 64 / AMD Ryzen 1700 @ 3.6 GHz / Asus Prime B350-Plus / 32 GB RAM / GeForce RTX 3060 12GB with latest studio drivers
Affinity Suite V2 latest official versions

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One possibility is that when Affinity Photo first installed, the user was presented with a choice between accepting the "default" options, or to "customise" the install.

If default was accepted, AP associated (changed) all image file types to itself.

If custom was chosen, the user was presented with a long checkbox list of images types so they choose which ones to change to AP, and which ones to leave alone.

This is common practice with major software applications. It looks like you accepted the default option.

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28 minutes ago, PeteMacca said:

This is common practice with major software applications. It looks like you accepted the default option.

The Affinity applications do not provide that option.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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14 hours ago, M1000 said:

This is a workaround which should not be necessary.

It is not a workaround! This has nothing to do with Affinity, it is how Windows works. The "Type" column shows the file type, which includes the associated app and (often) the extension, the "File extension" column shows the "type" (extension) of file it is (Which is what you want so you can sort by the file extension. Admittedly these headings can be a little confusing, but if you don't like how Windows displays the information, you need to complain to Microsoft!

(You can see from my screen grab that the Affinity apps are by no means the only apps that are associated with particular files.)

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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I appreciate your efforts, but I don't need any help with neither the Windows Filesystem nor with Affinity Photo. That's why I posted this in the Bugs section.

I'm just stating the fact that the Type column always shows "Affinity Photo File" for all different image formats, if you set them to always open with Affinity Photo.
Other programs don't because it's pointless.
It's not a Windows decision, it's because of the entries Affinity wrote in the Windows Registry during installation.

 

19 hours ago, PaulEC said:

You can see from my screen grab

I can see from your screen grab how it should be. Developers should either leave the Type as it is or use their own description in the Windows Registry as Irfan View does:


Irfan View PNG File
Irfan View JPEG File


or VLC Player:
MP3 Audio File (VLC)
WAV Audio File (VLC)


But changing all image formats to the exact same Type is – sorry to repeat myself – pointless.

Windows 10 Home 64 / AMD Ryzen 1700 @ 3.6 GHz / Asus Prime B350-Plus / 32 GB RAM / GeForce RTX 3060 12GB with latest studio drivers
Affinity Suite V2 latest official versions

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  • 1 month later...

I think M1000 is making a good point and for me personally I've never seen that windows has more extra options to display such as File Extension. I wonder why Microsoft chose to have options for both [file]Type and File Extension. Surely these should by definition be the same, For example, a .txt file is a text file, and what it is opened by can change for sure, but we see Windows has a column called Type (note its not 'filetype', but is there a difference? maybe in some far fetched semantic definition) AND also a column called File Extension...

Showing File Extension is what I have been assuming what Type has been showing me all along. Now I see how Windows has confused me in the past - it is in fact showing what program opens it and not necessarily what file type - although I use the icon change to see visually and then it's obvious to me what program will open it. Maybe they should have named it program type. Confusing naming conventions.

It's clearly a decision by Affinity to allow this to happen, as M1000 points out - not all programs do this File Extension is by default hidden away in some extra options whereas Type is shown as standard in a column. On the other hand if Affinity didn't know they had done this, its a bug, which is hard to believe.

But anyway I found this interesting and I've learnt more. Now I'll go and start my own thread on another confusing file type subject, which I'd like to understand.

 

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5 hours ago, Ian R said:

For example, a .txt file is a text file,

.txt and .py and .csv are all plain text files. I don't use Windows but I am curious as to what Type of file a .jpg or a .png or a .tif file would be? is it image or pixel or ...?

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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5 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

.txt and .py and .csv are all plain text files. I don't use Windows but I am curious as to what Type of file a .jpg or a .png or a .tif file would be? is it image or pixel or ...?

A .py file, assuming you have it set to Open with Python, is a "Python file":

image.png.750b282fc2ba3d138d02e6c7164b8356.png

JPG and PNG files, for me, show as JPG or PNG files.

image.png.e46eeac5e9f9d0ae96cc543378f99a59.png

And TIFFs show as TIF file or TIFF file, depending on the extension:

image.png.d5f478742cde3d8196cea2eb8a19794e.png

Mostly the file types match the file extensions, unless an application has claimed ownership or Windows has assigned ownership to an application or the user has told Windows to always open a particular extension with a certain application. For example, here's that last screenshot again, after I right-clicked the .tiff file and told Windows to always open .tiff files with Affinity Photo:

image.png.0795947355ce0391a4266553a40ca320.png

Now the file type shows as Affinity Photo File and the icon (in that "details" view) shows the Photo icon.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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14 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Mostly the file types match the file extensions, unless an application has claimed ownership....

Okay so the Type is not actually the file type but might tell me the application that can open that file type with that particular file extension. So pretty much a super File Extension.

Gotta love OS choices designed to make our lives a very tiny little bit easier causing, relatively, so much confusion.

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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10 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Okay so the Type is not actually the file type but might tell me the application that can open that file type with that particular file extension.

Or, at least, one of the applications that can open the file. For example:

image.png.3a5703547794b6c3c5f53a6a8282c85e.png

There might be other applications that could open the .idml file, but Publisher is the one that Windows will try by default (because it is the only application on my system that has said it can handle it).

It gets more complicted, though. Consider, for example:

image.png.13c175b18fd59b2457f8547df533013d.png

There we can see that Windows identifies a .afstyles file as, simply, AFSTYLES File. But notice the Designer Beta icon.

This one is odd because:

  1. There are several Affinity applications that can process .afstyles files.
  2. If I actually double-click on the file, Windows starts Designer, not Designer Beta.
  3. And, of course, Designer (and other Affinity applications) can't actually Open a .afstyles file. They support drag/drop, or you can import from the Styles panel, but Open will fail.

Thus, at least for this case, the icon shown doesn't really tell you what will happen, nor what may work.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 2 months later...

An added complication and confusion for me personally, I have found, is when I have made, for example, a simple pixel image and saved it as a Affinity photo file, then if I open it up in Publisher the next time I go to look at the file, it is often displayed with a publisher icon, although I did not save it as a publisher file. If I have saved the file as a designer file and then view it in publisher, the next time I look at the file in the OS explorer it is using a publisher file. I accept that Affinity says these file are interchangeable, but I used to use the same name in different file types for example if I was working on a vector version of a bitmap/pixel image and I could also tell which was which, now I can't 

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1 hour ago, Ian R said:

for example if I was working on a vector version of a bitmap/pixel image and I could also tell which was which, now I can't 

You can tell, if you configure File Explorer to show the file extension, and you use the extension rather than the icon.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 2 months later...

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