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Changing Background Color - Part 2


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I've tried 3 times to post this on the original thread Changing Background Color but it won't post when I click the Submit button.

I'm only afforded a very limited, short-time window to squeezing in learning A-Pub as I can carve in between stations. I share that so if you share insights I appreciate them but I can't work at A-Pub as often as I'd like. Plus, I have to do this dragging files and graphics among 2-3 different laptops. I revisited this and find my stuck right at the beginning. Lee? Could  you please share graphics which are a lot larger? I enlarge the screen but I can't see what your arrows are pointing to. The training and YT videos are even harder to see. I place my mouse on the Pages (tab or whatever the A-Pub term is for that Pages is) and clcik on it. It then creates a wider black page with Pages underneath it. There's a Rectangle Tool [M] under that - is that what gets clicked to "draw the rectangle"? If so, it draws a blue box but then immediately disappears. You mention locking it but if I let go of the mouse that blue box disappears. So must I I hold the mouse on it and somehow press another key to lock it? I can't see how this is being done.  If anyone can create a clearly visible instructional video of this,can you please share it in .mp4 and not a .GIF as I have no software tool in Windows to slow the video down if it's a .GIF. Thank you for your understanding and help!

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-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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Actually, this YT video is like every instructional YT video I've seen re: software and others agree. The video creators create/upload the video in such a tiny viewing size viewers can't see the words on the page. Ex. File. Edit - they click on them and even watching on a 41 " new TV screen in Whole Screen with the viewing screen specs as large as they can be set in Windows 10 the words appear tiny. What I and others have found best is the large graphics Old Bruce posts.  Maybe Old Bruce would be kind enough to post the step by step of opening A-Pub and then clicking on Master Pages and then Pages in the process of selecting a background color? Thank you.

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51 minutes ago, chasm said:

the video in such a tiny viewing size viewers can't see the words on the page.

Are you using by any chance customized playing options in Youtube, in particular its "Quality" settings? Click on the cog and see what video size is selected.

1891304432_youtubeoptions.jpg.6db67f13c5b333415f2e5833976caf03.jpg

This video is definitely larger than tiny. See below a screenshot of this movie. Download the image for a closer look. To me the video is actually the size of the app interface and appears with same details depths. Also note that TV screens (as maybe your "41 " new TV screen") can have a lower hardware pixel density and thus larger pixel size, which means they wouldn't be able to display an image sharper or with more details than a high resolution computer monitor.

1437376811_videoscreenshot.thumb.jpg.2009798057bd3537d61b36d83f1a45b6.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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1 hour ago, chasm said:

with the viewing screen specs as large as they can be set in Windows 10

In another thread you mentioned that you were viewing YouTube tutorial videos at a screen resolution of 1366 x 768. Is that the resolution that you’re using now?

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Hi thomaso, When I click on that Cog Wheel is 1440 HD and the words are tiny. Same if I connect the laptop to a 41" TV screen. That';s why I never watch YT videos as the words are tiny on all of them. Are you using a Mac? 55" screen? Thanks.

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@chasmmay I suggest turning on closed captions (the CC icon on the bottom of the video), she describes each tool as she goes, so any you aren't sure of, just pause the video and use the help file in our software to locate the things she's asking you to click.

I've copied and pasted the dialogue from the closed captions below for you to read to help you with this.


"to get started looking at master
pages I'm going to come to our master
pages panel and double-click on this
master page. this master page has been
applied to all of these pages by default
anything that I put on this master page
will automatically appear throughout our
entire document let me show you how this
works I'm going to select this rectangle
tool and then click and drag a rectangle
to see this rectangle a little bit
better I'm going to select its fill a
color and change its color to a bright
color that we can see we've applied this
rectangle to the left-hand side of our
master page because of this as we scroll
through our document we can see that
every left-hand page has this rectangle
applied to it anything I do to update
this rectangle on the master page will
automatically be updated in our main
pages if I change this color here you
can see it automatically update on all
of our pages this is a great way to have
control over your documents and
automatically update something
throughout an entire document with the
rectangle tool I'll click and drag
another rectangle over here and you can
see that we now have this long skinny
rectangle on all of our right-hand pages"

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11 hours ago, chasm said:

Hi thomaso, When I click on that Cog Wheel is 1440 HD and the words are tiny. Same if I connect the laptop to a 41" TV screen. That';s why I never watch YT videos as the words are tiny on all of them. Are you using a Mac? 55" screen? Thanks.

The screenshot above was taken on a mac screen with 15" size but high resolution.

Possibly you confuse screen size and screen resolution.

– With a lower resolution the interface items of an app (menu bar, panels etc) usually take more screen space & appear larger, while the layout space gets smaller (and accordingly the layout items in full page view).

– With a higher resolution (at same screen size) the hardware pixels are smaller (have higher pixel density) and accordingly show more details, while the interface appears smaller and the layout gets more space.

As far as I know, TV screens are limited in their resolution to the current max. TV video resolution (Full HD / 4K). This is independent of the size of the screen (its physical dimensions on a wall or furniture). So a certain video size displayed on a 10-metre screen (e.g. in a stadium) would not show more detail or be sharper than when displayed on a mobile device. Instead, the pixels have different sizes and thus the phone or tablet may appear sharper. (while for sharpness also the viewing distance matters as a further aspect influencing the visual impression).

That means if text appears too small for you then enlarging the screen size might not make it better but rather just make the text look more jaggy / pixelated or unsharp. So it is a matter of individual impression. If you say "tiny" we don't know what physical size you look at (e.g. in inch or mm). Does the text below look "tiny" to you (and easy to overseen), or is it rather "blurry" unsharp and thus hard to read? To me in the browser window the text in the image has the same size as the text in the forum posts.
 

722372003_resolutionyoutube2.jpg.61c738526a16b874fe3ca6e7dfd80110.jpg

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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12 hours ago, chasm said:

When I click on that Cog Wheel is 1440 HD and the words are tiny.

1440 HD (QHD) is 2560 x 1440 pixels. Why are you trying to use that resolution on a screen whose maximum resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels? :/

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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@Alfred In all honesty, as the image doesn't change in scale in YouTube's player it doesn't make a difference, but higher resolutions selected do affect the quality of the compression in a positive way regardless of whether you can meet the resolution.

The only thing other than what I've already suggested @chasmis perhaps screenshotting the video to zoom into it when you need to, or using the accessibility features of your operating system to zoom.

For Mac OSX

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh40579/mac#:~:text=On your Mac%2C use the,click Accessibility %2C then click Zoom.&text=Use the listed shortcuts to zoom in or out.

For Windows

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-magnifier-to-make-things-on-the-screen-easier-to-see-414948ba-8b1c-d3bd-8615-0e5e32204198#:~:text=Press the Windows logo key %2B Ctrl %2B M to open the,adjust the zoom level accordingly. 

 

Lee

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4 hours ago, LeeThorpe said:

@chasmmay I suggest turning on closed captions (the CC icon on the bottom of the video), she describes each tool as she goes, so any you aren't sure of, just pause the video and use the help file in our software to locate the things she's asking you to click.

I've copied and pasted the dialogue from the closed captions below for you to read to help you with this.


"to get started looking at master
pages I'm going to come to our master
pages panel and double-click on this
master page. this master page has been
applied to all of these pages by default
anything that I put on this master page
will automatically appear throughout our
entire document let me show you how this
works I'm going to select this rectangle
tool and then click and drag a rectangle
to see this rectangle a little bit
better I'm going to select its fill a
color and change its color to a bright
color that we can see we've applied this
rectangle to the left-hand side of our
master page because of this as we scroll
through our document we can see that
every left-hand page has this rectangle
applied to it anything I do to update
this rectangle on the master page will
automatically be updated in our main
pages if I change this color here you
can see it automatically update on all
of our pages this is a great way to have
control over your documents and
automatically update something
throughout an entire document with the
rectangle tool I'll click and drag
another rectangle over here and you can
see that we now have this long skinny
rectangle on all of our right-hand pages"

Hi Lee, Thank you for that written explanation. The challenge  I've faced is when I've clicked the Master Pages and then click Pages and start to draw the blue screen larger once I let go of the mouse that blue screen disappears.

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2 minutes ago, chasm said:

... The challenge  I've faced is when I've clicked the Master Pages and then click Pages and start to draw the blue screen larger once I let go of the mouse that blue screen disappears.

That "blue screen" is just an indication of the area the mouse has covered. It is sometimes referred to as a 'marquee'. If there are any objects inside that blue screen they will be selected.

I am not sure of what you are wanting to do but... You may want to choose the Rectangle tool to draw a rectangle instead of the Move tool (the arrow).

1719036029_ScreenShot2022-08-04at8_44_25AM.png.f8092ea0b6d18a18de86d36cf597de5c.png

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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3 hours ago, thomaso said:

The screenshot above was taken on a mac screen with 15" size but high resolution.

Possibly you confuse screen size and screen resolution.

– With a lower resolution the interface items of an app (menu bar, panels etc) usually take more screen space & appear larger, while the layout space gets smaller (and accordingly the layout items in full page view).

– With a higher resolution (at same screen size) the hardware pixels are smaller (have higher pixel density) and accordingly show more details, while the interface appears smaller and the layout gets more space.

As far as I know, TV screens are limited in their resolution to the current max. TV video resolution (Full HD / 4K). This is independent of the size of the screen (its physical dimensions on a wall or furniture). So a certain video size displayed on a 10-metre screen (e.g. in a stadium) would not show more detail or be sharper than when displayed on a mobile device. Instead, the pixels have different sizes and thus the phone or tablet may appear sharper. (while for sharpness also the viewing distance matters as a further aspect influencing the visual impression).

That means if text appears too small for you then enlarging the screen size might not make it better but rather just make the text look more jaggy / pixelated or unsharp. So it is a matter of individual impression. If you say "tiny" we don't know what physical size you look at (e.g. in inch or mm). Does the text below look "tiny" to you (and easy to overseen), or is it rather "blurry" unsharp and thus hard to read? To me in the browser window the text in the image has the same size as the text in the forum posts.
 

722372003_resolutionyoutube2.jpg.61c738526a16b874fe3ca6e7dfd80110.jpg

Hi thomaso When I open the graphics attached to this thread (except for OLd Brut's_ the words in the attache graphics appear yourtoo tiny to read. By Example if the words File|Edit|Insert are in the graphics they are too tiny to read. If I press Ctrl + it makes the screen larger but the words on screen blurrier. Is there any way you can create larger, easily readable still graphics like Old Bruce did? Thank you.

 

 

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

That "blue screen" is just an indication of the area the mouse has covered. It is sometimes referred to as a 'marquee'. If there are any objects inside that blue screen they will be selected.

I am not sure of what you are wanting to do but... You may want to choose the Rectangle tool to draw a rectangle instead of the Move tool (the arrow).

1719036029_ScreenShot2022-08-04at8_44_25AM.png.f8092ea0b6d18a18de86d36cf597de5c.png

I'm at the very beginning of A-Pub. I want to create a figure in Apub with waves behind them and different colored backgrounds. I have a set of directions  but without graphics with them and lacking years of experience with A-Pub I'm trying to learn this step-by-step and YT videos are not the solution as I don't see on my Windows 10 laptop what others can see on their Macs. Large, easily readable graphics like the ones you've posted are great. Do you enlarge your screen first and then do a screen capture to post on this thread?

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4 minutes ago, chasm said:

Do you enlarge your screen first and then do a screen capture to post on this thread?

My monitor is large and it is set to display at 6720 × 3780 pixels. In all honesty this makes the interface somewhat difficult to read after a while. I purchased it to edit photos on so until I toss away my vanity and buy some eyeglasses I will make do with occasionally squinting.

I guess my screenshots look good to you because they have a lot of pixels. Also they are made with the Retina resolution (double the number of pixels) and posted here at regular resolution. Meaning they are twice as large here.

Could well be that the posts and videos you have difficulty with were made with small monitor sizes.

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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3 hours ago, Alfred said:

1440 HD (QHD) is 2560 x 1440 pixels. Why are you trying to use that resolution on a screen whose maximum resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels? :/

What settings would you recommend me setting my Dell Laptop Windows 10 to?

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2 hours ago, chasm said:

When I open the graphics attached to this thread (…) the words in the attache graphics appear yourtoo tiny to read. By Example if the words File|Edit|Insert are in the graphics they are too tiny to read.

I still don't know / understand what you in fact see, respectively get displayed. You repeat "tiny" again and again but what real physical size does "tiny" mean on your screen? I would assume the text in forum posts is not tiny for you, right? So, does the image in my last post contain "tiny" text?

Can you post a screenshot of your entire screen, for instance taken from a browser window with a forum's post that contains such an image with too tiny text ?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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32 minutes ago, chasm said:

This is what I see when I play the video on my Dell Laptop W10.

I think that’s because you’re trying to view it at something other than the display’s native resolution. Try using a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels (HD) instead of 2560 x 1440 pixels (QHD).

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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