AP Studio panels broken

[marble51]

Hi. I have looked online to see if I can find a reason for what I am seeing but with no luck so I'm hoping someone here can answer.

I had a problem selecting brushes from my Brushes panel - I just could not get the scroll bar to scroll down the list of brushes. The moment I tried the scroll bar it selected and opened that group of brushes and would not scroll down the list. So then I tried to move the panel by holding the mouse button down and dragging. That does not work either (at least it only works when it feels like it which is not predictable).

So then I reset the Studio Layout in View>Studio>Reset Studio. This didn't help either. I have tried a factory reset too - didn't help. It is a PITA not being able to organise my panels and tabs the way I want them but I can't figure out why. I am on Windows 10 which is fully updated and Affinity Photo version 1.10.5.1342.

Edited August 9, 2022 by marble51
Correction

[marble51]

OK - the first part was my fault ... I thought the scroll bar would scroll through the list of brush types but it is actually the scroll bar for the panel behind the list.

The second part - about moving tabs and panels and panel groups is still valid although I found that by clicking in the top Left corner of the panel it allows me to drag that panel group if not the individual tabs. Clicking there again seems to disable that movement.

 

[GarryP]

This section of the forums is for the beta version of Photo – as opposed to the current commercial release – and there is no current Photo beta.
Posting in a beta section of the forums when there is no current beta will normally mean that your issue is overlooked for some time – people look less-often in the beta sections when there is no current beta.

Hopefully a moderator will be along soon to move this thread to the correct place for you; you do not need to take further action.

[marble51]

I don't see a forum for Affinity Photo current release. I see a bug report forum but I'm not sure it is a bug. I don't have Designer nor Publisher so I was looking for Photo support.

[Alfred]

Unlike the betas, there isn’t a separate forum for the retail release of each product. The Affinity Support & Questions section puts all Affinity on Desktop Questions (macOS and Windows) in one forum, and all Affinity on iPad Questions in another.

[marble51]

OK thanks. I'll try in that forum although I do find it quite frustrating when I search Google for "Affinity Photo" and I invariably get more Designer hits than Photo. Seems their forums follow a similar philosophy of merging all three products as though they were one. I really have no interest in either Designer or Publisher. I had both of those when they were Serif rather than Affinity and never used them.

[v_kyr]

• Quick Tips: for finding Affinity content with Google Search
• Google:   "Affinity Photo" -designer -publisher

[R C-R]

19 hours ago, marble51 said:

The second part - about moving tabs and panels and panel groups is still valid although I found that by clicking in the top Left corner of the panel it allows me to drag that panel group if not the individual tabs. Clicking there again seems to disable that movement.

If you click on the panel on the icon with two vertical lines, you should be able to drag that panel wherever you want. This should work for tabbed panel groups. For individual tabs in a group, you should be able to click & drag on any one of them & move it into another tab group or into a section of the panel by itself (IOW, ungrouped).

It can be a little tricky to master this but once you get things set up as you want, you can save & name this as a Studio Preset via the View > Studio Presets >  Add Preset... menu item, & recall it later in View > Studio Presets by selecting its name.

[marble51]

24 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

•  
• Google:   "Affinity Photo" -designer -publisher

Yes I do that even though it is also a frustration to have to type that in every time. So more often I just let Google show me all the unwanted stuff and browse the results looking for Photo specific hits.

[marble51]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If you click on the panel on the icon with two vertical lines, you should be able to drag that panel wherever you want. This should work for tabbed panel groups. For individual tabs in a group, you should be able to click & drag on any one of them & move it into another tab group or into a section of the panel by itself (IOW, ungrouped).

It can be a little tricky to master this but once you get things set up as you want, you can save & name this as a Studio Preset via the View > Studio Presets >  Add Preset... menu item, & recall it later in View > Studio Presets by selecting its name.

Yes, I got close to the point you are describing although for some reason that icon with the two lines changed to a single vertical line. So I found that by clicking around, not in any tutorial or advice I could find online (nor in the help files). Still, I was not able to move the tabs around in the panel nor move them out of the panel. So I ended up with the panels more or less where I wanted them and I did save the preset as you describe. But it is not the most intuitive viewport I have ever worked with.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, marble51 said:

Yes I do that even though it is also a frustration to have to type that in every time. So more often I just let Google show me all the unwanted stuff and browse the results looking for Photo specific hits.

Because all three Affinity apps share a common native file format & all support all the same object types (even though not all can create them all). much more than you might think is not specific to just AP, AD, or APub. So for instance, in all three apps you can rearrange the panels & save them as Studio Presets in tha same way.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, marble51 said:

Still, I was not able to move the tabs around in the panel nor move them out of the panel.

Did you try clicking on the name of any of the tabbed panels, for example on the "Colour" tab in your screenshot & for example dragging that onto the tab group below it, the one with Navigator, etc.? You should be able to do that or to drag the tab name to the left or to the right in the same tab group to place it to the left of "Histogram" or to the right of "Swatches."

Likewise, you should be able to drag it completely out of the Studio so it becomes a floating panel.

[marble51]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

Did you try clicking on the name of any of the tabbed panels, for example on the "Colour" tab in your screenshot & for example dragging that onto the tab group below it, the one with Navigator, etc.? You should be able to do that or to drag the tab name to the left or to the right in the same tab group to place it to the left of "Histogram" or to the right of "Swatches."

Likewise, you should be able to drag it completely out of the Studio so it becomes a floating panel.

Yes, I have Affinity Photo open right now and I am trying precisely what you say. Clicking on "Colour", for example - it just will not move.

[marble51]

Right - now I find that I have to click that little corner icon again before I can move a tab (as opposed to the panel or group). Still, as I moved the tab it suddenly merged all my panles into one and I ended up with all the tabs in a single panel. Jeez this is a pain to work with.

[R C-R]

17 minutes ago, marble51 said:

Yes, I have Affinity Photo open right now and I am trying precisely what you say. Clicking on "Colour", for example - it just will not move.

You are clicking & holding on "Colour" before you try dragging it, right? If you just click & release the mouse button, it just selects that panel in the tab group.

[marble51]

38 minutes ago, R C-R said:

You are clicking & holding on "Colour" before you try dragging it, right? If you just click & release the mouse button, it just selects that panel in the tab group.

Yes, of course! I was in computer support for 30 years before I retired so I know how to drag with the mouse. I can understand your doubts about my intelligence if you are not seeing the same issues but that is precisely why I asked on this forum. Maybe I am missing some kind of setup preferences. However, I would expect this particular function to work as advertised out of the box, as it were. Which is why I perfomed a factory reset on the application but that didn't help either.

[R C-R]

I don't know of any preference setting that could affect this. All I can tell you is it works for me in all 3 Affinity apps, although finding the correct 'landing zone' to get what I want can be a bit tricky/hit or miss.

But it definitely moves somewhere when I drag it.

[marble51]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't know of any preference setting that could affect this. All I can tell you is it works for me in all 3 Affinity apps, although finding the correct 'landing zone' to get what I want can be a bit tricky/hit or miss.

But it definitely moves somewhere when I drag it.

Thanks anyway. I was hoping that I wasn't the only one to see this. Normally I mention something on a forum and someone has already figured out how to fix it.

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, marble51 said:

Thanks anyway. I was hoping that I wasn't the only one to see this. Normally I mention something on a forum and someone has already figured out how to fix it.

I've never seen anyone reporting the issue you seem to have. Can you capture a screen recording showing what's happening? (You may need a screen recorder that would show where you're clicking, and not all of them will do that.)

[marble51]

7 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I've never seen anyone reporting the issue you seem to have. Can you capture a screen recording showing what's happening? (You may need a screen recorder that would show where you're clicking, and not all of them will do that.)

Clearly, as you say, nobody else has this issue so I don't see the point of a screen recording especially as it is simple to describe. What could be more simple? I can't drag the tabs and panels around as I should be able to. Seems to me that, like the other comment above, there is doubt about whether I am actually manipulating my mouse clicks and drags like everyone else does. I can assure you that I know how to click and drag. I've been doing it since that function was invented. I do it in any number of other applications.

There is one thing you could do to help me - and perhaps others: point me to where it is described that clicking the little vertical line(s) icon in the top left corner of a panel is necessary? I did not find that either in video tutorials or the help text but I might have missed it.

[walt.farrell]

25 minutes ago, marble51 said:

There is one thing you could do to help me - and perhaps others: point me to where it is described that clicking the little vertical line(s) icon in the top left corner of a panel is necessary? I did not find that either in video tutorials or the help text but I might have missed it.

It's not required, depending on what you're trying to do.

You can drag an individual studio tab simply by grabbing it.

I think (away from the computer at the moment) that you only need to grab that icon if you want to move a complete set (row) of tabs in the studio to some other place.

Edit: As for where it's described, 

https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/pages/Workspace/customizingWorkspace.html

Quote

To move a panel group:

Drag the panel group from the left-hand || button to a new position, either:

As a free floating panel group.

As new items in an existing group

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by walt.farrell
Added pointer to Help.

[marble51]

21 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It's not required, depending on what you're trying to do.

You can drag an individual studio tab simply by grabbing it.

I think (away from the computer at the moment) that you only need to grab that icon if you want to move a complete set (row) of tabs in the studio to some other place.

Edit: As for where it's described, 

https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/pages/Workspace/customizingWorkspace.html

 

Ok so I had also read that help page you link to and I do not see any mention of clicking the corner icon. I know that I am supposed to be able to move these tabs and panels simply by "grabbing" them but that is the whole point of this thread - it just doesn't work for me. Or, at least, it works sometimes (for example, if I click the corner icon) and not others (even when I have clicked the corner icon) so I have yet to nail-down what sequence of actions will guarantee a dragged tab or panel. I am at the point of completely uninstalling Affinity Photo but I'm not sure whether I will need to go through all the online registration and prove that I have bought it in order to re-install it (more hassle).

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, marble51 said:

Ok so I had also read that help page you link to and I do not see any mention of clicking the corner icon.

Do you mean the double-vertical line icon described as the 'left-hand || button" in the help topic or something else? If you mean that double-line icon then it is intended to be used to move the panel group out of the (left or right) Studio panel either into another position in an existing Studio panel as a new section of that Studio or out of the Studio panel entirely so it becomes a free-floating (undocked) panel group.

It is not needed to drag a specific tab in a group to another position.

Anyway, since you have saved a Studio preset you can return to maybe try dragging the  || icon straight to the left until the entire panel group is clear of the docked Studio panel, & maybe posting a screen recording of doing that. I know you think it won't help but it can't hurt, right?

[marble51]

34 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Do you mean the double-vertical line icon described as the 'left-hand || button" in the help topic or something else? If you mean that double-line icon then it is intended to be used to move the panel group out of the (left or right) Studio panel either into another position in an existing Studio panel as a new section of that Studio or out of the Studio panel entirely so it becomes a free-floating (undocked) panel group.

It is not needed to drag a specific tab in a group to another position.

Anyway, since you have saved a Studio preset you can return to maybe try dragging the  || icon straight to the left until the entire panel group is clear of the docked Studio panel, & maybe posting a screen recording of doing that. I know you think it won't help but it can't hurt, right?

Thanks - I had not noticed that as I had not expanded that section when I read through the help page. Not that I'm sure I would have known what it meant as mine only has a single vertical line as you can see from the screen shot above. Nevertheless, it does not behave entirely as described as I need to click that icon before I can move anything (group or tab) and even then it is hit and miss whether it will move or not.

I don't have the screen recording software but I'll look for a free one and see if I can get it to work. I think it is probably a waste of time because I seem to be the only one having this problem so maybe the application does not like my mouse drivers or something wierd like that.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, marble51 said:

Not that I'm sure I would have known what it meant as mine only has a single vertical line as you can see from the screen shot above.

Unless that is a difference between the Windows & Mac versions of the Affinity apps, I do not understand why it is not showing as a double line for you.

Assuming it should be the same for both, it must have something to do with why you can't get this to work like it should but I have no idea how to fix it, at least if you have tried the normal solutions like resetting user shortcuts via a CTRL-key start of the app.

Muy only other thought is there might be some other add-on to your system interfering with this, like something that enhances the feautures available with you mouse, but that seems very unlikely.