Affinity Designer

[Peter Fincham]

As a new user of Affinity Design, (I am on MAC OS Monterey 12.3.1); I have reset my computer PRAM & used Disk Utility; My Affinity software is up to date, but l have found problems when trying to use Affinity Designer. 1). Tools panel keeps disappearing, which l can restore; but the deeper problem is 2). When l try using Affinity Design/View/Studio/Isometrics function, the Affinity Designer program bombs repeatedly. Reports were sent yesterday (x5) either to Mac or Affinity... I think it could be either a software conflict or it may be my particular Mac OS 12.3.1?  Some insights into my problems would be appreciated please. Thanks. 

[stokerg]

Hi @Peter Finchamand Welcome to the Forums,

Can you just try going into Preferences for Affinity and on the Performance section, is Metal Compute at the bottom of the window enabled?  If it is, untick it and close Preferences and you'll be asked to restart Affinity.  Once restarted try your workflow again and let me know what happens.  Also for the Tools panel, are you tools docked to the side or floating?

[Peter Fincham]

Thanks for your input. I shall continue to experiment; however what does metal compute do?; and why should it be turned off?.

As for my toolbar, l will check and see if it is locked. On all other DTP/Graphics computer programs that l have used in the past, a locked toolbar is default...    Affinity Design_Uncheck Metal compute.afphoto

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Peter Fincham said:

... however what does metal compute do?

In theory it speeds up (accelerates) many operations by offloading certain tasks from the CPU to the GPU, but in reality it doesn't work correctly with some hardware & OS combinations; thus, the suggestion to turn it off.

5 hours ago, Peter Fincham said:

As for my toolbar, l will check and see if it is locked.

From your screenshot, it looks like you have enabled Separated Mode in the Windows menu. In this mode, the toolbars & Tools panel 'float' outside the document window. If you want them 'locked' to the document window, disable Separated Mode.

[Peter Fincham]

Thanks for your reply; however when going to Tutorials on the Affinity website, l have been unsuccessful in discovering where they have hidden the steps necessary to Disable Separated Mode. Could someone assist please? 🙂

 

[Alfred]

On 7/15/2022 at 4:15 PM, R C-R said:

From your screenshot, it looks like you have enabled Separated Mode in the Windows menu. In this mode, the toolbars & Tools panel 'float' outside the document window. If you want them 'locked' to the document window, disable Separated Mode.

 

1 hour ago, Peter Fincham said:

Thanks for your reply; however when going to Tutorials on the Affinity website, l have been unsuccessful in discovering where they have hidden the steps necessary to Disable Separated Mode. Could someone assist please? 🙂

If you follow the link to the Help article on Separated Mode, you should see this:

Quote

• From the Window menu, select Separated Mode. This menu item lets you toggle between the Normal and Separated mode.

 

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Peter Fincham said:

Thanks for your reply; however when going to Tutorials on the Affinity website, l have been unsuccessful in discovering where they have hidden the steps necessary to Disable Separated Mode. Could someone assist please? 🙂

You can just type "separated" into the search field in the Help menu & you should see something like this:

If you hover the mouse pointer over that first item, it will show you exactly where that menu item is.

[Peter Fincham]

Thanks R C-R and Alfred.